Your Fire, Your Soul
by lizardwriter
Summary: Series 3 rewrite in which Katie might not be as straight as she'd like to believe. Katie/Effy, Naomi/Emily and other pairings : Disclaimer: I do not own Skins or the characters! Please Read and REVIEW! :D
1. Episode 1

**Disclaimer: Skins characters aren't mine. I wish they were. **

**A/N: This is a rewrite of series 3. Each chapter will be an episode, but there will be more and more deviation from canon as the story progresses. Hope you like it! Title is from the Dar Williams song "Your Fire Your Soul". Please Read and REVIEW! :D**

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Episode 1

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It starts with a girl: long brown hair, sparkling blue eyes that seem to see everything and feel like they're piercing your soul when they look at you, all knowing smirk quirking at her lips, barely there dress. Everything about her just screams sex appeal and it sure as hell isn't lost on you. You notice can't help but notice her on that very first day of school when you're nattering on about surf and turf at the travel lodge with Danny who you're dating for appearance, for convenience, for status…basically for all the wrong reasons. You don't actually like him at all, he's just a good cover. It keeps other people from thinking that maybe you're…You can't think it. That's that all of the boyfriends you've had have been for. It's why you've been so insistent of never being single, because there's that nagging part of your brain that notices the curves of a girl's body and how somehow they always seem more attractive than their male counterparts.

Besides, if you're fucking Danny, then maybe you're really not…

Except that this gorgeous girl catches your eye and you feel a tingling down in the pit of your stomach that you try not to show, and you realise then and there that you might be screwed. This façade that you've built up over the years may be about to crumble down around you.

You can't help the way your eyes drag up and down her body, though you do your best to make it as quick and as unobvious as possible. You feel her eyes do the same to your body like they're scalding you as they go, but it feels more like you're being assessed than like you're being checked out.

You shake yourself out of it and say a shallow goodbye to people whose names you've already forgotten or didn't bother learning to begin with. You call over your shoulder to your sister, annoyed that she's lingering behind you because at this moment, with the girl's eyes still burning into you, you'd like nothing more than to beat a hasty retreat into the school building. You relax a little when Emily follows along obediently. You don't have the guts yet to go say hi to the girl with the piercing blue eyes and the silky brown hair.

* * *

You don't find out exactly who she is until assembly.

"Elizabeth Stonem?" the name rings out and your mouth hangs open when you see her raise her hand, and you can't help thinking that she even manages to do roll call in a kind of sultry way.

Stonem. You know the name. You've heard of Tony Stonem. Everyone who's anyone has heard of Tony Stonem. So Elizabeth must be his little sister Effy. For fuck's sake! Why did it have to be her that makes you feel this way? Effy was fucking born to rule this school just like her brother did! Spending time with her you'd hardly be low profile. Good thing you've got a boyfriend. You have to become friends with her though, you decide. Not being friends with her would just, well...suck! You already are having trouble tearing your eyes away from her. At least if you're friends with her you could play off things like that as you two being best friends or something.

Still, Effy fucking Stonem? That was going to be a challenge.

"And, um, Naomi Campbell?" the timid woman up front calls out, not quite believing the name.

You do though and your stomach drops. _Lezza bitch_, you think automatically, because you've trained your brain to respond like that. You caught her and your sister kissing at some middle school party where _all_ of your friends were and any of them could've fucking seen and if they'd seen one twin kissing a girl it wouldn't have been a massive leap for them to assume that the other one was interested in kissing girls too. And it had to have been Naomi's fault, because Emily just wouldn't go around kissing girls. And the absolute worst part? You'd been jealous! Fucking jealous of your lame sister! She got to kiss a girl (which you were quite sure wasn't something you should have been jealous of, for fuck's sake). And Naomi had been looking really pretty that night too. Even you had noticed (though you'd pretended not to). She'd colour coordinated for once. You couldn't help resent Naomi for that night.

She was not looking quite so good today and you can't resist the snide comment you whisper in Emily's ear with a grin on your face, even if Emily simply rolls her eyes and doesn't find the humour in it. The girl is a walking fashion disaster at the moment, for fuck's sake! Does she even look in the mirror before she leaves the house?

Your eyes flick unwillingly back to Effy Stonem. She obviously looks in the mirror before she leaves the house, you think. Then again, maybe she doesn't. She's one of those people who doesn't even fucking have to try to look that good.

You get distracted again when Naomi fucking Campbell decides to complain about the boy next to her. You have to admit that he seems like a tosser, but then again, maybe it's just because he's forced to sit so close to Naomi. When he's instructed to show everyone his tattoo he gladly drops his pants. You can't help but let out a small laugh at his bravado, not to mention the tattoo that's actually on his arse and cock. You catch him looking at Effy and Effy's looking back and she looks so fucking sultry. Your stomach churns a little. You try to ignore it.

This is going to be a long fucking school year!

* * *

You pretend that you're not keeping your eyes peeled for signs of Effy Stonem as you head for class by looking disdainfully at most of the other people at your college. Some of them, you note, actually have a sense of style. Some of them are even kind of pretty. There are definitely a few cute guys, or rather, guys you know are cute (though finding them attractive is a different matter). None of them stand out like Effy does though.

You're lingering nonchalantly outside of your classroom, leaning against the lockers. She's in your form, you know she'll show up sooner or later. Emily lingers not far off. You can't help wishing that she'd go in and find a seat without you. You want to sit with Effy anyway.

You can sense her as soon as she turns the corner. It's her presence. It can be felt from a distance. You turn your head and watch her approach. Everyone's watching her approach, you notice, and you feel a knot in your stomach tighten. She's got a goofy looking blonde next to her. Same one you'd seen next to her outside of college and again in assembly. You'd glower in jealousy if you didn't think it'd make you look stupid and desperate.

She smiles at you, and even though it's not really a kind smile, more of an amused one, your heart flutters, and you let your eyes appraise her body again as she approaches, just as you did earlier. She's even more attractive standing up. You allow yourself a small smile back, trying to mimic the cool, amused expression she's wearing. You wish you could be sure that you're pulling it off. You really have never met anybody who exudes coolness as effortlessly.

You realise you've maybe been staring a tad too long, and you didn't even notice the approach of this well fit blonde bloke. You know you should want to date him really. The persona you put on would at least. He could be a useful future possibility. You step out and introduce yourself smiling charmingly, even though you're sure his eyes had been examining Effy. (Part of you just wanted to prevent the two of them getting to know each other.)

He introduces himself as Bruno, but looks right past you. You keep the smile on your face, you know it makes you look cute, but inside another knot in the pit of your stomach forms as he eyes Effy up and down.

Fortunately Pandora (as the goofy blonde girl presents herself to be) steps in and makes a complete fool of herself, chasing Bruno off in the process. You catch yourself just before you'd have breathed a sigh of relief. You can't understand a word of what she mutters afterwards, but you take note of the way she calls Effy "Ef", and you realise that a nickname denotes a certain amount of familiarity.

You hear her voice for the first time then and it's as sultry and sexy as you'd imagined it would be (not that you'd ever admit that you'd imagined it at all, because that would just be weird). "I'll ask," is all she says, and it sends a bit of a shiver down your spine.

You smile politely at Pandora when she introduces herself to you and Emily, but you're sure that your face is betraying at least a little that you'd quite like her to just go away. She's really rather odd after all.

You turn back to Effy and to hide the fact that just standing this close to her and finding her staring at you intently has set you completely off balance, you act as fake as possible. Not intentionally, per se, but it's become a bit of a reflex. "Cute," you remark snidely.

Effy lets out a small equivocal grunt that leaves you unsure if she's agreeing with you or not, especially since she's still wearing that small, not completely friendly smile (that you can't help thinking makes her look extremely attractive), so you continue on.

"I'm Katie. That's my sister," you wave in the general direction of Emily, your voice conveying your current annoyance with her. She nods along and her silence propels you to keep talking. You don't know what to say really so you go with the only thing you really know about her which is that she's got this fit brother, Tony who got hit by a bus and according to some reports went mental. All of your friends back in high school had major crushes on him. You didn't, though if he has half the sex appeal of Effy, you understand why they all found him so attractive. You try not to notice the way that she eyes your sister. You wish she was looking at you. You bring up Danny to try to show off, to try to get her attention focused back on you. You kind of wish you hadn't though. Really, deep down, you know he's nothing to brag about.

"Impressive," she comments flatly. You know she doesn't really think so, but you don't let on that you know. It's probably better if she thinks you're really into him. It's better if everyone thinks that. It'll keep them from asking questions you don't want to face. Effy already looks at you with eyes that seem to see too much.

You suggest that the two of you should sit together and chat because the two of you are the best looking in there. The truth is that you know you're not really in the same league as her. You suggest that the two of you should hang out as well. You're babbling, you know, and you feel like a bit of an idiot, especially with the way that she's just looking at you, studying you. You feel like you're under a fucking microscope and it's making you blurt out idiotic things.

You spot Naomi out of the corner of your eye. Why did God feel the need to curse you with her presence back in the lives of you and your sister? You warn Effy to stay away from Naomi because she's a lesbian (though truth be told you've never seen any evidence of that fact other than her kissing your sister and you're pretty sure that someone told you at the end of middle school that she was dating Jeremy Lloyd, but still). You want to steer Effy away from her because otherwise they could potentially become friends (though you think there's rather little potential just based on what each girl is wearing today), and then Naomi might tell Effy things about Emily (and she might lie and say Emily kissed her...probably would, the bitch) and Effy might start to wonder and then she might start to wonder about you too, and that would most definitely be bad.

Naomi (obviously trying to be as obnoxious as possible) comes to a stop directly in front of you and you can't for the life of you remember why you found her even remotely attractive that night she'd kissed Emily (except that those sharp blue eyes might be beautiful if they weren't so busy glaring) as she tries to stare first Emily and then you down. You don't know why she'd have a problem with your sister. If anything it should be the other way around!

Naomi finally murmurs, "Excuse me," because apparently she can't be arsed to walk around you to get into the classroom (it's not like you're blocking the door even), so you roll your eyes a little and step out of her way.

You decide to be proactive and warn Effy not to talk to her because she _tried_ to snog Emily in middle school. Effy's expression doesn't change so you tag on a "Pervy, don't you think Ef?" (secretly enjoying the way that the nickname falls off your tongue) and you wait for her response.

You almost jump when Naomi's voice comes from right behind you. "Watch out Katie, I might get confused and fuck you with my great big strap-on by mistake!" she warns.

You hate the way that your pussy clenches at the suggestion and now images are coming unbidden to your mind. You want to slap her but you're focusing on controlling the rest of your brain which has apparently decided to go a bit pervy on you and so instead you just stand there, eyes locked with hers (and yes they would definitely be considered pretty if they weren't glaring at you...she's even done the makeup just so, so that they really pop). She gives you a once over, but there's no appreciation in it, just disdain (and really how can there be no appreciation, because you do look fucking fit in your top), before turning on her heels and heading into the classroom. Your sister (fuck her) has a smirk on her face (which you'll have words with her about later) and that just increases your anger now that you've got full control of your brain again. "Muff munching bitch!" you growl as you turn back to Effy (and you think you catch a fleeting glimpse of an amused smile on her face too that makes your stomach flip in a way you're not ok with it doing and makes you wonder exactly what she thought of the little exchange that just happened). "She just jumped on you, didn't she Ems?" you add, making it sound completely worse than it was. Truth is you don't have the foggiest idea how it came about, just that you walked in the room and there they were, hands tentatively holding each other's faces as their lips worked against each other. You don't want to know if tongue was involved. Your sister chooses then, of all times to stand up to you and tells you to just leave it. You're vaguely aware that you'll sound like quite a homophobe and a bit of a bigot if you don't, so you shake it off and say, "Whatever," in reply to your sister.

You turn back to Effy and contemplate trying to regain some of your dignity, but you're not sure how, so instead you just say, "Come on. We'll get the best seats, yeah?" You walk into the classroom and don't wait for her reply because you're really not desperate for friends so you really don't want to appear that you are.

You settle yourself at a table in the middle and you smile to yourself when Effy does indeed come and sit next to you a few minutes later. She quirks her eyebrow up at you in a question that you can't decipher, and you feel like she's appraising you for a second before the corners of her mouth turn up ever so slightly and she turns to face the front.

The teacher starts grumbling a few minutes in, and you think he's swearing under his breath, so you glance at Effy to see if she's hearing the same thing you are and the faintly amused look on her face would imply that she is.

The man finally says that you've all got to stand and say a unique fact about yourselves before standing and starting them off with, "I'm Kieran and I hate being a fucking teacher!"

You have to smirk at that, and you think that he might not be too bad of a teacher if he's going to be this "I don't give a fuck" about the whole school year, and, besides, you have to admire his honesty. You catch Effy glancing at you and you see that she's rather entertained by his statement as well. It feels nice, sharing a look with her. It makes you hope that you really will become good friends with her.

An awkward boy with bad skin who's in desperate need of a good haircut is called on and introduces himself as JJ before he starts to ramble.

Your mind tunes him out and starts to race, contemplating what you should say when you're called on. It has to be something that'll set you apart (from everyone, but specifically from Emily). You need to come off as cool and mature (and above all else: straight). You think of something and you smile to yourself, and a moment later you're glad you thought ahead because you get called on next.

You stand, feeling self-assured, and glance around at the class to make sure that everyone (especially Effy) is listening. "I'm Katie. I've never not had a boyfriend since I was seven." As soon as the words are out of your mouth you can't help thinking that it makes you sound like a bit of a slag (although you only ever date one guy at a time...Cheating is most definitely wrong and Emily may not think that you have much of a moral code, but that's definitely in it). You keep the small smile plastered on your face anyway, unwilling to show signs of doubt at yourself and Kieran mutters what you're sure is a sarcastic "Congratulations," but you smile like he means it anyway and take your seat.

You can't stop the glance at Effy, whose expression hasn't changed from the last time you looked at her and you can't help but worry a little at that.

Emily gets called on next, of course she does. At least you know you've definitely set yourself apart from her when she announces, "I'm Emily. I've never had a boyfriend." The only thing is, that people might start to wonder why she's never had a boyfriend, and then they might start to wonder about you, and you don't like that. You also don't like that Effy seems somewhat interested by that little revelation and is eyeing your sister curiously. It's not like it's even true! Not really. You set her up with Dan Webber last year and they went on at least three dates, and you pushed her towards Liam Marshall who thought she was cute and you know for a fact that they kissed. Ok, so she's never really had a boyfriend like you have (not for lack of encouragement on your part), but still...

Fucking Naomi gets called on next and says something about injustice and lying, but you try not to listen and instead make sure you appear bored at what she's saying. You do notice the pointed glare she sends your sister's way though, and that bothers you.

A few other people get called on, and you do your best to listen, until Effy gets called on and you don't have to try anymore because you find that you're actually kind of excited to learn something about Effy.

Effy stands with a confidence that isn't put on at all and you can't help but envy it. "I'm Effy and I think my mum's having an affair," she says, staring Kieran straight in the eye.

Your jaw drops and you can't help thinking that she's all the more cool for being so ballsy. You recover quickly, not wanting her to find you gaping when she looks back at you.

The tall, somewhat attractive (or he would be if he took time to choose his outfits better and didn't have that gross scab on his chin) boy on the other side of you gets called on next and introduces himself as Freddie. You want to scoff at his unique fact which is simply that he met a girl he liked today and she's beautiful. You want to, but you can't, because you realise that Effy is looking at him and you think you catch something, maybe the hint of panic in her eyes, but it's just there for a second and then it's gone so you can never really be sure it was there to begin with. Still, something about the way she's looking at him makes your stomach churn uncomfortably and you realise that he's talking about her. Of course he is. She's gorgeous. She's the only person around who could make someone that infatuated with her in so little time. If she goes off and finds a boyfriend though, then that'll give the two of you less time to develop your friendship! (You don't want to think about why else Freddie's revelation and Effy's reaction might be bothering you.)

You glance at Effy again, but she's not looking at Freddie anymore. Instead she's looking down at a piece of paper in her hand that seems to be a list of some sorts. You peer over her arm to read it a bit and notice the words "Arson" and "Drugs" before the words "Sex in school" jump out at you. They apparently jump out at Effy as well because she taps them.

You look away quickly before she looks up and catches you being nosy, but your heart starts to race and you're not entirely sure why.

Next thing you know, Effy's raising her hand. "Kieran, I'm feeling rather shit. I think maybe I need to go to the nurse's office."

Kieran, of course, allows it.

You hate the upset feeling in your gut at the thought that she's leaving. You hate it even more when you notice her give a pointedly seductive look to the boy who pulled his cock out at assembly. Your suspicions are basically confirmed when a minute later the boy makes a lame excuse about his balls aching and excuses himself to the nurse's office as well. He grabs the list that Effy'd left on your shared desk on his way out.

Suddenly you wish that Kieran wasn't so free and uncaring about what you do. You wish he'd put his foot down and made them stay.

Images flood your mind unbidden of Effy, scantily clad, and of the boy pushing his sizeable cock into her. You stare straight ahead and try to focus on the stupid video that Kieran's playing instead, but it doesn't work. You notice out of the corner of your eye that you're not the only one wearing a scowl. Freddie's got one that rivals your own.

You really can't help that you're in a bad mood for the rest of the day.

* * *

"Can you believe that Effy just buggered off with that Cook guy?" Emily asks you on when you're making your way through the school so you can go out and meet Danny so he can give you a ride home (and then possibly another kind of ride once you're there if Emily agrees to disappear for a while before your parents get home).

You scowl at her. "I'm sure she had her reasons," you reply.

"Yeah, but I mean they just met today! I can't imagine shagging some bloke I just met!" Emily insists on talking about this.

You glare. "You don't know for sure that they shagged. Maybe they just went off somewhere and shared a spliff or something because they were bored. God knows that video was boring as shit!" You know it's a feeble alternative, but it's the one you've been clinging to since you thought of it about half an hour after they'd left the classroom.

"Yeah, right, because spliff is a notorious cure for aching balls," Emily rolls her eyes.

"Shut up, Ems! Like you'd even know!" you shoot back at her. Fortunately she listens to you then, and when you see Danny waiting for you by his car (you pretend that you don't notice the way he's leering at a few of the other girls around), you kiss him hard, not caring that he sticks his tongue a little too far down your throat or that his hand is very obviously grabbing your ass because it shows people (and it shows you) that you don't really give a fuck who Effy Stonem lets fuck her because you've got someone you're fucking too. A guy! A fucking Bristol Rovers Reserves player!

You don't think about the fact that one of Effy's little smirks make your pussy tingle more than the entire snogging session with Danny.


	2. Episode 2

Episode 2

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A few weeks into college and you're rather impressed that you apparently have managed to become friends with Effy Stonem. She at least continues to sit next to you in classes you share (for the most part). She even talks to you sometimes, though you've found that she doesn't say much, and half of what she does say is either annoyingly perceptive or annoyingly cryptic. Still, at least it's conversation, and she's having it with you rather than one of the other girls that you know would kill to be her friend. You see them eyeing you enviously on the occasions that you walk to class together (though a lot of the time it's by accident that you end up side by side, not that you'd volunteer that information). You have to admit that that jealous glint in their eyes makes you feel kind of superior, like there's something about you worth coveting. It annoys you that you mostly have to share the walks to class with Pandora who really couldn't make less sense if she tried most of the time, so it baffles you that Effy seems to not only tolerate, but occasionally enjoy her company.

So far (and this pleases you more than you'll ever admit) she's managed to refrain from running off to the nurse's office with Cook again to do...whatever (you do your best not to think about it, but when you do you can't help clinging to the hope that they didn't actually have sex). You can't help but dislike Cook though. He, unfortunately, doesn't seem to feel the same way about you, and as a result has propositioned you at least five times so far, twice suggesting a twin thing (which is just so many levels of gross, though you have to admit that you've used the suggestion to pull a rather fit guy before). It doesn't surprise you, then, when he invites both you and Emily to his birthday party.

You don't give an answer immediately, but when Effy indicates that she'll be going you decide that you should go too. It would be the nice thing to do. Besides, anywhere that Effy goes is bound to be a party and it would be an opportunity to spend more time with her (and potentially make sure that she doesn't spend any alone time with Cook).

It's for this reason that you find yourself pushing open the door to a dingy pub apparently belonging to Cook's uncle, Pandora on your heels. Effy enters after her, followed by Emily who is straggling behind as always.

You internally grimace when Cook wraps his hand behind Effy's head as if claiming her and greets her specifically with a "Hey baby!" Cook welcomes you all to his party (which doesn't seem like much of a party at all given that the only people in the pub besides you four, Cook, Freddie, and JJ are a few old men and the blonde woman behind the bar) and proceeds to threaten two boys who followed in after you with bodily harm. You can't help your muttered, "What the fuck?" in response to it. Cook even has the gall to call it a "legendary night out" which seems like a rather doubtful claim at this stage of the evening at least.

You notice that Effy seems mildly entertained by his suggestions of activities you can engage in, which include eating grapes off each other (he wishes) and smashing speakers over your heads (like, just...why?).

Cook proceeds to guzzle down a whole pint, spilling half of it over himself. You're torn between being mildly amused and being disgusted. Clearly the boy has no manners to speak of.

Drinks are served and Cook hands out lame party hats (and all of them clash with your outfit, much to your annoyance, but you pick the one that clashes least). Effy's, of course, manages to look almost sexy on her.

JJ announces (at Cook's insistence, you're sure) that a round of "For He's a Jolly Good Fellow" is in order on a seventeenth birthday. Nobody sings very enthusiastically, but Cook seems tickled pink by it nonetheless.

At least you're sitting next to Effy and she seems as unentertained as you are. It's really the night's only redeeming factor so far.

Cook decides that more drinks are in order (and really you're not sure he needs any), but you can't bite back your snide comment of, " He's fun."

"You have no idea," Freddie agrees with you.

"He's already had half a bottle of vodka," JJ supplies like that's supposed to be impressive (because really it's not all that much given that you and Ellie downed an entire bottle of vodka between you when you were only fourteen, not that you felt very well the next day).

"Really? How crazy!" Effy replies, voice dripping with sarcasm and you can't help but smirk to yourself, but all JJ does is giggle nervously.

Cook comes back with several shots of tequila and passes them out. You're not complaining, mind, because really you're going to need to be drunk to survive this night with your sanity intact at all. You all take your shots easily, but you can't help being slightly impressed when Cook downs about seven in a row. The thought of doing the same makes you feel sick to your stomach.

You can't help wondering if maybe he's doing it to try to impress Effy and you give her a sidelong glance to see if it's working, but you see she's exchanging an amused glance with Freddie instead. An incredibly sultry amused glance. Your stomach ties itself in knots.

JJ tries to liven things up with a magic trick and you find yourself kind of interested. You'd never admit it aloud, but you've always secretly kind of liked magic. It's impressive really. JJ's definitely is, when he makes a goldfish appear in a glass of water. You find yourself murmuring in amazement and you hear Effy chuckle beside you (a sound that sends tingles through your body).

Cook pauses for a second, apparently too astonished to talk, but he quickly recovers and reacts far more boisterously than is appropriate. He nicks the glass off JJ and to your horror and disgust begins to chug it. You gag into your mouth when he swallows every last drop, goldfish included. What a fucking way to go!

That unfortunately leads to Pandora emptying the contents of her stomach onto the table just next to you. You scoot away instantly and even though most of your brain is busy being revolted, part of it notices that you've managed to move closer to Effy and is rather happy about that fact.

Your disgust manages to increase when Cook leans over and enthusiastically sniffs it and informs them all that the last thing that Pandora ingested was a strawberry milkshake. When Pandora asks him how he knew, he claims to be a ninja. Personally, you can't help thinking that that's a skill that you could really do without.

.

.

Half an hour later you're silently asking yourself if this night could get any worse when the answer walks in the door.

"Great, it's the lesbian come to gay us up!" you mutter sarcastically when you spot Naomi. She's wearing something tacky as usual. Does she even try to pick out decent clothing? And where the hell does she find those fucking ugly shirts?

Emily scolds you, and you wonder when exactly she started standing up to you a bit more. Whenever it was, it needs to stop now.

Naomi takes a seat and greets everyone, but she practically looks like she's sulking. You don't know why, because at least she got invited to a party (you certainly wouldn't have invited her to your seventeenth birthday party), and it's not like she's even had to suffer through the past forty-five minutes.

You don't know why you can't seem to escape her. You hate that her presence is a constant reminder to things you'd rather forget.

Cook finally genuinely makes you laugh when he leans over and informs Naomi that he's got the cure.

"The cure for what?" Naomi inquires.

"It's my cock," he lets her know in a stage whisper.

Effy, for some reason, doesn't seem amused. You think it's rather funny for a few reasons, one of them being that you doubt seriously that Cook's cock is actually the cure for anything. It's more likely the spreader of disease.

An awkward silence settles over you all and Emily finally breaks it by bringing out the cake she's made. You really didn't know why she bothered for such a tosser, but she insisted that it would be a nice thing to do. She even tried to get you to help and make the icing, but you flat out refused. You had better things to do with your time.

Cook at least seems to appreciate your sister's hard effort, though, and has the decency to thank her. It turns out, however, that he lacks the common decency to share (and you wouldn't have minded a piece because you have to hand it to your sister, she's a really magnificent baker).

You find yourself horrified yet again when he proceeds to eat the entire cake by himself. With his hands no less! If someone had asked you earlier, you wouldn't have said it was even possible. The boy must have an insane metabolism to be able to eat like that and still remain so fit.

Cook actually says, "Well someone had to get this party started," after he's followed up the cake with another pint of beer and you just can't hold your tongue anymore.

"Party? Do you call this a party?" Because really in your book 'party' denotes fun and this has been anything but. If Effy hadn't been there, you would've walked away much earlier. "Where's the conversation? Where's the dancing? Where are the men?" You're not entirely sure why you added the last question, except for you're aware that you've developed a bit of a persona of someone who's only interested in boys, and, well, really, that kind of suits you, because if that's your reputation, then people aren't about to be asking questions about you or why you want to be friends with Effy quite so much.

"We're men!" Cook replies defensively and you have to scoff.

"You're boys!"

"Do you want to measure my dick?" Cook offers, and knowing him he'd probably pull it out for you to do so. You really, really don't want to see it again, though. You'd rather Effy not see it again either. (Maybe Ems could do with seeing it though.) "It's daddy sized! What, so you all think this party's shit, yeah?"

_Yes!_ you yell in your head, but you've said your piece and you think you've conveyed your opinion. You hope that somebody else backs you up (and quite frankly you can't believe that they wouldn't because it honestly doesn't seem like they've been enjoying themselves all that much either).

"It's a little bit..." Emily starts, and of course she's trying to be polite, but at least she's also trying to back you up.

"It could be..." Pandora chimes in.

"It's shit!" Effy assures him and you smile to yourself that she's obviously on the same page as you.

Even JJ seems to agree. Cook sucks on his teeth annoyingly as he seems to think. Apparently this is news to him, though you don't know why seeing as most of you have barely even smiled since you got there. (Naomi hasn't at all, but that's just because she's a sulky bitch as far as you can tell.) "Right, well since you all feel this way..." Cook starts to say, but he fades out. "I'll be right back, yeah? And then we'll get this party staaaarted!"

Cook steps outside and you try to start making conversation. You hate the way that Effy and Freddie keep making eyes across the table at each other, so you're relieved when a few minutes later Freddie gets a call and steps outside as well.

"This is hands down the worst party I've ever been to," you disclose to Effy.

She glances at you and you can't help feeling like she's appraising you again. Her eyes flick down and for a second you think her eyes graze over your tits, but maybe it's just your imagination because then her eyes are back on yours and she nods her head ever so slightly in agreement. "Let's hope that we can make it interesting."

A shiver runs down your spine at the way she rolls the word interesting off her tongue, drawing it out, her eyes gleaming slightly as she says it. You consider that Effy's idea of interesting might potentially be a bit dangerous (for you at least). Despite that, the thought excites you a bit.

Cook marches back in with a pleased grin on his face. "Pack your bags lads and ladies! We're going to a paaaart-ay!"

.

.

The party, it turns out, is someone's engagement party, and it also turns out that Cook intends to try to crash it. This isn't really your idea of fun either.

You are mildly entertained at the thought that Cook might get beat to a pulp by the rather intimidating looking bouncer. Then maybe he wouldn't be fucking anyone (especially not Effy). You scold yourself though because it is his birthday after all.

Two girls come outside, one is apparently Freddie's sister. She's kind of pretty, but your gut instinct is that she's a bitch. (Then again, that's probably most people's reactions to you.) Maybe a bit of a slag too. The other is the one getting married. Your jaw drops when at that announcement Cook says congrats and pulls the girl into a full on lip lock. She's _definitely_ a slag.

They discuss something for a second that you're not quite close enough to hear, and then Cook flashes a bag of drugs and suddenly you're walking into the party. That's potentially the first good news of the night, except that you walk in and realise that you're rather underdressed (which is not something you've ever been before). At least you're not as underdressed as Freddie who's wardrobe makes him look a little like he belongs in a mental institution. That or like he's a professional painter, except his outfit is missing the paint splotches.

You all stand rather awkwardly back, taking things in while Cook goes to talk to Karen and the bride-to-be. They're joined by someone who appears to be the father of the bride (and a rather sleazy looking guy at that).

Father of the bride turns out to be gangster Johnny White. That's just wonderful. Fucking Cook has led all of you into the lion's den. And knowing him, he's bound to do something to piss the guy off and then you'll all probably end up at the bottom of the Avon River. Just lovely.

Drugs get suggested though, and that sounds like it could drastically improve your evening so you all make your way to the loo and you snort a line of some sort of coke/MDMA mixture that his Uncle Keith has apparently made right next to Effy. It burns your nostril and you can taste the bitter taste of it at the back of your throat, making you cringe a bit, but you know the high will be worth it.

Pandora gets the baggie next and your eyes bug out of your head as you watch her down the whole rest of the bag. She's going to be ridiculously fucked up. The drugs hit your system and you can't help be amused. You leave the room with Effy, Pandora, Naomi, and your sister on your heels and feel the music pounding in you. You decide that you may as well make the most of the night as Effy starts to dance near you.

You can't help but notice how gorgeous she looks, just dancing so freely next to you. You make sure that you stay near her, but not so close that you're apt to actually touch her or anything. (You're not sure quite how your body would react, especially with the drugs in your system, and you'd rather not risk it). You let the music take you as you move to the rhythm and you hope that your body can manage even a fraction of the grace that Effy seems to just innately possess.

.

.

Effy turns to you and asks you where Emily is. You frown when you realise that you don't know and you don't see her. You can't actually remember the last time you did see her. You're not actually too aware of the passing of time at the moment.

Your frown deepens when you look around again and realise who else you can't spot. _Stupid__fucking__lezzer__bitch__Naomi__fucking__Campbell!_

"Interesting..." Effy comments cryptically.

"What?" you scowl.

"That you noticed _her_ absence too," Effy replied with a wink.

You're about to protest (you'll wonder later why it didn't occur to you to question who Effy was referring to), but Effy seems to relent and says, "Let's dance."

She grabs your hand and pulls you out onto the dance floor, and you can't help feeling a little special that she's picked _you_ to dance with. (Your annoyance for her automatically vanishes).

She starts to move with you and she winks seductively as she wraps her arms around your neck. You hate that the proximity starts to get to you, but it does, so you close your eyes and just let your body sway to the music.

You feel Effy move in even closer and you hear a whisper in your ear. "So how alike are you and Emily?" she inquires and you feel one of her hands slide down your back and come to rest at the base of your spine. It sends a shiver through you that you wish it hadn't because if anyone's going to notice it's Effy. You don't want to think about what exactly Effy means by her question, so you don't respond.

Her body moves closer still until your bodies are flush against one another, rubbing in ways that really should not excite you given that Effy's a girl, but you feel a small wet patch growing in your knickers nonetheless. You've danced with girl friends like this before, but it's never really had quite the same effect and it's always been to try to pull a guy, so you open your eyes to glance around at who Effy might be trying to turn on with this dirty dancing routine. You see Freddie watching you both (no, you realise: watching her) and he's practically drooling. There are a couple of other guys who look like they wouldn't mind getting into one or both of your pants. When your gaze flicks to Effy, however, her eyes are trained on you, an interested gleam shining in them as she watches you. Your breath hitches and she cocks up an eyebrow. You can't help feeling like she sees right through you, into your brain.

You're about to try to ask her why she's looking at you like that (though you're not entirely sure that you want the answer), when it becomes clear that the dancing around you is stopping and some sort of speech or something is about to be made. You and Effy break apart and try to focus on the front.

Johnny White takes the stage and starts giving a speech. Apparently this lovely engagement party you appear to be at is for a wedding that will unite the Whites and the Hestons, in other words two gangster families (with apparently no fashion sense given that one set of them are clad in white track suits and the other in green track suits).

Honestly, this is one of the most potentially dangerous situations you've probably ever been in. The drugs in your system seem to make you care a little less though, and Effy doesn't seem nervous, so that eases your nerves as well. Plus then Effy's arm brushes against yours, and you find yourself completely tuned out of the rest of his speech (which last you heard had turned to his daughter's purity which you're sure is nonexistent). You're much more focused on the almost unearthly beautiful girl beside you.

You start to think that the kind of trouble you can get in tonight might be completely unrelated to gangsters and Cook.

.

.

You're not sure how exactly Cook managed to take the stage but suddenly he's singing, belting out a song, and you have to admit that you're rather impressed. For starters, the boy's obviously got balls. He's also got a surprisingly nice voice, and his performance gradually grows more and more entertaining until you're genuinely laughing.

You laugh hard until you notice Freddie looking worriedly behind you and you notice why. Johnny White is staring daggers at Cook, and you think that perhaps he won't have balls for long. It turns out that he at least won't be conscious for long because he gets knocked out mid verse.

You glance around, but nobody else seems willing to interfere as Johnny White's men drag him up the stairs to a balcony. Effy appears uninterested (which makes you smile internally because you're sure she'd care if she'd actually fucked him). You all turn as a group to watch as Cook's pinned up against the balcony once he's come around.

Freddie finally goes up there to try to reason with them and apparently succeeds because you hear Johnny White saying to let him go. He obviously should have chosen his words more carefully because moments later Cook is falling off the balcony straight onto the enormous cake (and a few members of the Heston family) below, splattering the bride-to-be (who apparently has fucked all of the Heston men) and incidentally starting an all out brawl and a bit of a food fight.

You duck and cover as you try to make your way out of the madness just behind Effy. You don't want to catch a stray fist to the face, and it's bad enough that bits of cake have managed to get stuck in your hair.

Once you're outside and free you hear Effy start to laugh as you continue to run away, having enough of a self preservation instinct to get a bit further away from the chaos. Effy's laughter is infectious and within moments you're giggling too, as is Pandora. Cook is running ahead of you with JJ, but you're sure that you hear him howling with laughter as well. In fact, Freddie, who ends up just in front of you is the only one who doesn't seem particularly amused.

You run into a tunnel and decide that you can stop to catch your breath there.

"Cool party," Effy pants once she's caught her breath again, and maybe it's the drugs but you can't help thinking that her voice is incredibly beautiful.

"Cheers," Cook replies.

"You're fucking unbelievable," Freddie comments as Effy and Pandora dance along the wall beside you. Pandora really is incredibly fucked up. She's on a whole new level beyond what you even though possible. Effy obviously finds it entertaining so you find that you do too.

"I needed to get laid man," Cook explains, and really that's hardly a shock. That seems to be his main motivation in life.

"You're always fucking trying to get laid!" Freddie accuses.

"I try and succeed, right?" Cook nods at Effy, and suddenly you feel your heart drop. So they have fucked. There's confirmation right there.

You look to Effy to deny it. You find yourself mentally pleading with her to say, "What? I'd never fuck you!" It doesn't come.

"Speaking of which, any of you girls want to get to it?" Cook inquires as he lights up a fag.

You have to laugh at that, especially after the little revelation that's just happened. "No thanks. You're repulsive!" you inform him. You try to hide the fact that inside your mind is reeling, covering it with forced laughter at his suggestion.

"Weird girl?" Cook asks Pandora who even as fucked up as she is has the common sense to say no (though she calls him beautiful, which is insane given that the most beautiful person in the tunnel is standing right near her and her beauty by far outshines any that Cook might possess).

Cook leans his hand against the wall by Effy's head and eyes her up and down and you feel your stomach churn at the sight. "How 'bout it then peachy?" Cook offers. "It's just me and you."

You think you might actually vomit if she says yes, but fortunately she laughs a little, pauses (almost giving you a heart attack) and says, "Come on, Amy Winehouse! Home!" to Pandora.

They start to walk away and you follow, adding a coy, "See ya," to the boys.

"You can crash at mine, if you want," Effy offers once you're out of earshot of the boys. "Pandora's staying too."

The offer makes your heart flutter, and you're not sure why, but you do know that you'd be stupid to say no. "I just need to make sure my stupid sister's safe first. I can't believe she fucking disappeared on us."

"I'm sure Naomi didn't let her come to any harm," Effy comments.

"She's not with Naomi," you inform her. She better fucking not be at least. You pull out your phone and press two to speed dial her. She answers on the second ring.

"I'm fine, Katie. I'm sorry, I got a headache so I decided to come home. You seemed like you were having fun so I didn't want to bother you," she says straight away, not even bothering with hello. Really, between the two of you, there's no need.

"Next time fucking text at least, yeah?" you request.

"Yeah. Sorry. You coming home now?" Emily asks.

"No," you bite your lip nervously and glance at Effy who's watching you interestedly. You catch sight of Pandora spinning in circles and staring at the sky just behind her. "I'm going to Effy's actually. Cover for me if Mum and Dad ask?"

"Of course," Emily sighs. "Night."

"Night, Ems," you reply then hang up.

Effy gives you a small smile, but you can't help feeling that it's a tad condescending. Especially when it's accompanied by a small head tilt and the comment, "Sweet."

You feel your cheeks flushing a little, but you put it down to the drugs in your system and that fact that you'd been running before.

"Come on, Pandora. We need to get you to bed," Effy announces, turning to Pandora with kind eyes. You can't help wishing that she'd look at you that way, just once. You don't understand their bond at all, but you can't deny that they have one, and it bothers you that it seems closer than whatever tentative bond you've managed to form with Effy. "Help me with her?" she requests, as Pandora slumps towards her.

You simply nod and take her other side. Apparently the drugs have now had the effect of making Pandora forget how to walk.

The progress towards Effy's is slow, but when you get there and you crash onto her large bed beside the leggy brunette, feeling her arm against yours and knowing that it will likely be there all night, you can't help thinking that it was worth it. The whole night was fucking worth it.


	3. Episode 3

Episode 3

* * *

Life settles down for a bit after Cook's party. It's not dull, by any means, but in comparison to that night...well, there's no life or death moments. There's also no more sleeping in Effy's bed with her. (Not that your mind lingers on that night or anything. It doesn't. Nothing happened. You just slept, obviously. Next to her. Your legs and arms grazing from time to time. It was just kind of fun, that's the only reason you're disappointed it hasn't happened again.)

Your coursework load increases quickly, but sometimes you really just can't be arsed to do it, no matter how much Emily bugs you to get things done. You know that for the most part she'll do enough of it for you that you'll pass, so you do some and leave her to do the rest.

Effy invites you out from time to time, but to your great annoyance she always seems to invite Emily, Pandora and Naomi along as well (well she always makes a point of saying that she invites Naomi and you almost feel like she's watching both you and Emily for a reaction, but fortunately the blonde has only shown up a few times). Pandora's usually already hanging out with her when you get to wherever you're meeting up, much to your annoyance.

You just want a bit of time alone with her. Not for anything weird or inappropriate obviously. You're dating Danny and you're strai...well, you're dating Danny. Fucking him even. And you come sometimes...Twice since you've been dating him (definitely not envisioning piercing blue eyes and long brown hair that second time).

You just want to get to know her better. You want her to get to know you better, and not in the annoying, staring straight into your mind and seeing things you don't want her to way she has.

You chase after her in the hallway one day in between classes. You're wearing a new top that you know accentuates your tits, and you really want to show her (and you secretly really hope that she'll notice exactly how much justice it does your tits). Emily's following after you, as always. Sometimes you really wish she'd get a life at school. You point out your new top to Effy but she barely even looks at it. To be honest, she barely even looks at you.

"Well when you've got tits like mine you've got to flash it a bit, haven't you?" you add, and she finally turns, but there's no amusement showing on her face today. In fact her eyes look a little dead. It throws you off.

"Sorry," she says coldly, and you're not entirely sure, but you think it might be a question, and her lack of response is creeping you out a bit and also a tad annoying, so you reply, "Breasts, girl! You should try it."

You don't know what exactly possessed you to add that last sentence and you regret it as soon as it's out of your mouth (although you really wouldn't mind if she wore lower cut tops and maybe a push up bra...she'd look so fucking fit...then again, maybe it's better she doesn't).

"I never try," she responds icily and she glares before she simply walks away.

It's true, you think. She doesn't try. She just is. Even today, when she's clearly not alright, she still looks perfect and gorgeous, not a hair out of place.

You feel like you've just been scolded and you know you can't let that horribly nauseous feeling that's just erupted in your stomach show, so instead you say, "Huh?" as you turn your head to follow Effy with your eyes. Emily comes into your frame of vision, and the nausea increases as you realise that you've not only virtually been told off by your best friend but your fucking little sister has witnessed it. "Stop fucking following me, will you?"

"I wasn't," Emily calls after you, but you ignore her. You don't want to deal with her right now. All you want to do is go off somewhere and regain your composure.

You head for the doors of the college and by the time you step outside you're practically gasping for breath. You lean heavily against the side of the building and close your eyes. You tell yourself it's fine. Whatever was wrong with Effy has nothing to do with you and she just felt she could take it out on you a little because you're so close and she knows you'll forgive her. She'll get over her annoyance at your stupid comment. You tell yourself all of this and more, but when you finally head back into the building, you can't help thinking that you were only feeding yourself lies.

* * *

Effy still seems a bit off when you see her later in the day, and you can't help but worrying that you've royally screwed up. You still very much want to be her friend. It's more like a need really, or that's what it feels like at least.

It's for this reason that you jump at the opportunity to go out when she texts saying to meet her because a friend of hers needs help. She says to dress to party, so you spend an hour picking out your outfit. You're relieved she texted you and want to look good.

Emily's coming too, which you don't really mind in this case because part of you definitely feels a bit more secure when she accompanies you to things away from college.

You're to meet outside of Effy's and your heart skips a beat when she texts you the address. You're walking so quickly in anticipation that Emily practically has to jog to keep up with you, but as soon as you're within eyesight you slow to a reasonably calm pace. Effy's already standing outside having a fag, and fuck if she doesn't look ridiculously hot.

Emily falls into step beside you as you approach. "You're fucking strange sometimes," she mutters.

"What?" you snap, because really who the fuck is _she _to call _you_ strange?

"You practically raced here and now you're walking like you haven't been. Strange," Emily repeats herself.

"Cunt," you growl under your breath. She doesn't reply.

Effy seems a bit more friendly when she greets you. She informs you that Pandora and Thomas (who you assume is the new friend in need) are just inside arranging things and will be out in a minute, so you lean back and try to look cool and relaxed in a way that you know Effy pulls off effortlessly.

"You look nice, Katie," Effy comments, and you feel her eyes sweep up and down your body.

"Thanks," you reply with a smile. You can't quite shake the feeling that she's mocking you a bit from before though.

That suspicion is only deepened when a moment later Effy adds, "Top makes your tits look fantastic," with a sarcastic wink (and really you hadn't known that it was possible to make a wink sarcastic, but Effy's just managed it).

You don't respond then, but your cheeks feel hot, and you know you're blushing a bit.

Pandora bounces outside then with shy, but friendly looking boy trailing behind her. You've never been more grateful for the blonde's bubbly presence. Thomas is introduced to you and Emily, and you could be wrong but you thought you saw him in a janitor's uniform in school earlier. You decide not to mention it. You don't want to look stupid if you're wrong. The way that Emily smiles at the boy confuses you for a second because there's an air of familiarity, and you don't know why. To the best of your knowledge Emily doesn't know anyone that you don't. Still, if she's smiling at him, maybe that's a good thing. Any interest your sister shows in boys is a good thing, really.

You start walking towards the place that you're apparently meeting Cook and you're a bit pleased to find Effy falling into step beside you. It makes you think that maybe this is her way of letting you know that she's not really holding a grudge about before.

The walk turns out to not be a long one, and when you get there you see Freddie, JJ, and Cook standing around, but absolutely no signs of a party anywhere. _Great! I probably got all dressed up for nothing!_ You think to yourself.

"Girls! We were just discussing breasts and there you were!" Cook greets you.

"Tosser," you reply, but you can't fight a grin from spreading across your face. Cook may be a right arsehole, but at least he can recognise a nice pair of tits, and you can't help feeling a bit pleased at the way his eyes flit over your chest. You glance at Effy who seems mildly amused (which you're starting to think is as amused as she ever appears).

"This is the guy you're gonna help out tonight," Effy informs the boys, introducing them to Thomas.

"So glad," Thomas smiles broadly and shakes Freddie's hand. It amazes you how he seems genuinely pleased to meet each and every one of you.

"Thomas has gotta get three hundred quid by _Desperate Housewives_," Pandora elaborates, "And that's tomorrow. Otherwise Johnny White's gonna make him-"

"Johnny White?" Freddie interrupts. He looks suddenly a bit on edge and you wonder if he's going to back out.

If Johnny White's involved, maybe you and Ems should back out too. He wasn't too pleased with any of you last time he saw you. You glance at Effy and see that she obviously isn't going to abandon Thomas and Pandora, so you resolve to stay as well.

"He's got thirteen ounces of weed in the bag," Effy informs them.

"If you'd help me, I could give you much," Thomas offers, holding up the blue and white striped shopping bag. "And it is excellent weed," he adds.

"Hi," you hear a voice say that freezes you in place and brings and instant scowl to your face. You turn to find fucking Naomi Campbell waving to you lot, like she's really one of your friends.

A few of the others offer up a "Hi, Naomi," but you can't bring yourself to. Instead, your comment is, "Aww Christ! Not again! Who phoned her?"

"Please, Katie, don't!" Emily pleads with you, but you just can't listen.

You're especially annoyed that she's there when you realise that she doesn't look all that bad today, ludicrous bag that slung over her shoulder and ridiculous pig on her T-shirt aside. Her makeup looks rather classy and her hairs falling nicely over her face. _Lezza bitch!_ You growl internally. You're definitely not allowed to think that she looks nice.

"Hi, sorry, I couldn't find a bus," she apologises, as if you actually care. "Said somebody needed a hand?"

"Yeah, you like giving a hand, don't you Naomi?" you remark snidely with a short bark of laughter at the end. You know its mean, but you just don't care when it comes to her. You really wish she'd disappear.

"See you," Naomi turns and starts to sulk away, because obviously she can't take a joke.

"Fuck's sake," Emily grumbles at you, and you really don't know why she cares so much. "She didn't kiss me ok?"

"Yes she did!" you argue. She had to have kissed Emily. Your sister's not gay. You're not gay. "She practically jumped-"

"I kissed her!" Emily interrupts you, and you glare. How can she be doing this to you now, here, in front of everybody? They're all going to wonder about you too now! Stupid bitch! "I was drunk, and...Someone gave me MDMA, and...I felt like fucking kissing someone!" Emily continues. At least she's saying she was drunk and high. Emily'd have had to be to kiss Naomi Campbell. "Satisfied?"

How can she even ask that? Of course you're not fucking satisfied! Especially since out of the corner of your eye you see that Naomi's turned around again and is slowly making her way back to the group. You also notice, much to your chagrin, that Effy seems rather interested and her gaze is flicking between the two of you with a small smile on her face.

"I'm fucking satisfied, yeah!" Cook replies for you. "Be even better if you showed us!"

Like that's fucking going to happen. Cook can be such a wanker sometimes. Well, all the time really as far as you can tell. Fortunately, Effy tells him to shut the fuck up, clearly not amused by him.

"And you promised me a party! Where is it?" Effy demands.

It's a good question and you're ridiculously thankful for the subject change, especially since everyone's eyes have now turned off of your and Emily (except for fucking Naomi's eyes, and she better look away soon if she knows what's good for her), giving you a chance to regain your composure.

"Can't you feel it kids?" Cook asks, as if the party is somehow blatantly obvious and roaring all around you, when it's obviously not.

You all look around trying to see what he could possibly mean, but everyone else's blank faces assure you that you're not the only one who can't feel a thing.

"It's the sound of the underground!" Cook announces, pulling open a manhole cover, revealing blindingly bright light from below. Suddenly the pulse of the base floods through you and the sound of the party below reaches your ears.

You let out a small giggle, because you certainly never would have thought to look there, and from the sounds of it, the party's raging. You glance across to Effy who's smiling her approval and kind of nodding her head slightly to the beat.

"Cool," she says, and you can't help thinking that it's even more so now that it's gotten the Effy Stonem seal of approval.

* * *

You all climb down a ladder into an underground cave that's lit up and staged for a party. Weed is distributed among you. You head off into the throngs of people to begin selling, but you can't keep your eyes from scanning every once and a while to see where Effy is. She always seems to have a customer, you notice. It's her natural appeal. Everyone can sense it, it seems like.

You're not doing too badly though, and several rather fit blokes buy some bags off of you, and a few of them proposition you as well. You indulge in a few dances. You've got the damage that Emily potentially did to your reputation earlier to repair, after all. You're not gay. You don't kiss girls. You kiss attractive guys instead, and you certainly don't turn down a dance with them.

Before long you've got sixty quid in your purse to give to Thomas and you're ready for a bit of a break. You relax against the wall of a kind of smaller cave off the main party one that is, fortunately, empty at the moment. You're just catching your breath when you look up and find Effy smirking at you.

You can't stop your brain from thinking that she looks incredibly sexy standing there looking at you like that. Your heart beat becomes erratic as she approaches, and before you know it, she's standing directly in front of you, only an inch of space between you.

She leans in close to your ear, and, God, you can smell her perfume and it's simply intoxicating! You close your eyes as she murmurs, "So, you're sister's gay, does that mean you are too?" into your ear, her hot breath hitting your cheek and sending a chill down your spine.

You're about to protest that Emily's not gay, and you sure as hell aren't, but then her lips are pressed against yours and her whole body moves forwards, pinning you to the wall. It's a bruising kiss, hard, not giving you any room for escape. You can't help but kiss back.

Your brain screams at you that you're kissing a girl. Not just any girl: Effy Stonem. And, God, her lips are soft and supple and her tongue is brushing against yours, and within seconds you're uncomfortably wet. This is nothing like any kiss you've ever experienced, and that's the problem really, because it is so much better (and you know that Effy doesn't even really mean it; she's just toying with you).

You can't help the way a small moan escapes you mouth when Effys fingers scrape down your sides, and then next thing you know Effy's pulled back, out of the kiss. Her lower body is still very much leaning against yours, but her lips aren't kissing you anymore and she's looking you dead in the eye.

She runs her tongue along her bottom lip, and you know that she feels the shudder it produces in your body. You feel trapped by the little glint in her eye like a deer in the headlights, unable to even push her away. "Sweet," she comments tilting her head to the side as if she's thinking a little, but all you can think in your head is that she tasted a bit sweet as well, though with the distinct added taste of vodka and cigarettes.

She finally pulls completely away from you, and only then do you let out a ragged breath that you didn't realise you'd been holding. She stands there, staring at you for another second with the closest thing to a genuine smile you think you've seen playing across her lips. "Interesting. Thanks." She turns then and slips away, and you hate your brain for the way it thinks of her movements as graceful and attractive.

You're mind is still reeling, trying to catch up, but a second later it kicks into action. One thing's for sure: you need to go after Effy and make sure that she knows that you're not gay. Emily's not either, for that matter, but you're much more concerned with your own reputation at the moment.

"Effy!" you call after her, watching her snake her way through the crowd and you can't help but marvel that nobody ever seems to knock her accidentally, instead they merely part around her, letting her through. You aren't nearly as lucky as an elbow catches you in the ribs.

"Tosser!" you growl at the offending young man who's clearly already too far gone to even notice that his elbow even connected with anything. You continue to follow Effy and you catch glimpses of Emily and Pandora up ahead as well. Effy's heading towards them, you realise, and if she reaches them before you do, which she undoubtedly will, then you won't be able to confront her.

You're about to redouble your efforts to reach her, when something else catches your attention. Thomas, the boy you're supposed to be helping, is on stage for some reason, and he's started rapping. He's pretty good, too! You forget momentarily about your goal, and just let yourself drift towards your sister and your friends as you keep your eyes on him. You smile as the crowd responds to his rapping, even though you're sure that most of them (yourself included) haven't a flying fuck what he's saying. You know someone who's on stage right now. That's your friend you were trying to help. That's pretty cool, you can't help but think.

You reach Emily's side and see that Effy has made it to Pandora's. Your face is in the middle of reverting to a scowl when she looks at you and there's not a trace of smugness about her. Instead she's smiling broadly, and she winks at you, but not in a nasty way at all (in fact you think it might be her friendliest gesture to you yet) and then she turns back and howls at Thomas, supporting his rapping debut.

The kiss is momentarily shoved to the back of your brain. It won't do you any good to think about it while everyone's around, and apparently Effy's not going to make a big deal about it, at least for now. You know she hasn't said anything to anybody yet because nobody's looking at you even remotely funny.

Thomas makes his way off stage towards you all, and informs you, in his stilted English, that you should all make your way out of the club before Johnny White can find him again.

You can't help wondering when all of this unwanted excitement will end.

* * *

You're all away free and clear, and Thomas has more than enough money and he's just thanking you, when a car pulls up, and Johnny White and three other men step out. Their baseball bats don't go unnoticed.

Your pulse rate increases drastically as adrenaline starts to pump through your system. This is not good. Not good at all. You hate that you almost instinctively look to Effy to gauge her reaction. She's standing just behind you and Ems and instead of anxious, like you think you should feel at having a girl that kissed you (when it was clearly unwanted) so close, you instead feel a bit of comfort.

Johnny White starts in on Thomas, then notices a suddenly rather sheepish looking Cook. You're sure that Cook is about to get the beating of his life, but then Thomas's voice rings out.

"You must be some kind of English pussy cunt," he tells Johnny White, and you're not sure whether to laugh or run for your life, so you settle with gaping in surprise.

Johnny White turns slowly and steps back towards Thomas.

"You heard me. I think you are afraid. Possibly, your father was a homosexual donkey," Thomas continues.

Your jaw drops even further. You're not sure you've ever met anyone so brave (and stupid).

"I will fight you by myself. You can choose any weapon," Thomas offers.

"You just made my day," Johnny White replies, and all you can think is that Thomas is screwed. He must not know who he's really dealing with or he never would have said those things. Johnny White's going to fucking kill him.

* * *

You're rather shocked when you all end up at a restaurant. You're not sure exactly what you expected, but you were sure it'd involve like knives or baseball bats or something. Neither of those seem to be making an appearance, however (not that you're complaining).

Johnny White is setting out the terms of his winning, which includes, among other things, Thomas getting beaten to a pulp and apparently you and the other girls getting raped.

You feel your level of alarm increase dramatically (which you hadn't thought possible given how bad the situation was to begin with). You make a point of not looking at Effy, who has somehow ended up at your side again. You can't let her know a) that you're concerned about her well-being and b) that you're extremely fucking scared right now. You feel her eyes flit over you, though, and it makes your heart skip a beat in the mile a minute pace it's keeping up at the moment.

You relax just a little when one of Johnny's boys (who's dressed in something ludicrous that appears to be a top made of like green fishnet or something), says that actually they don't want to rape anybody. That's one less thing to worry about at least, even if the comment only seems to enrage Johnny more.

You're waiting for the weapons to be brought out once the terms are clear, but instead a fucking plate of chilli peppers is placed on the table. According to Johnny White it's the Naga Jolokia, which is the hottest chilli pepper on the planet. Whoever flinches loses.

You allow your eyes to flick towards Effy just for a split second as Johnny White eats his first unflinchingly. It's not an auspicious start for Thomas, and it's made you just a bit more nervous.

Thomas grabs a handful, then places a few extra in his hand, and you think that surely he's bluffing, but then he puts them all in his mouth at once.

You can't stop the gasp that escapes your mouth. The boy's going to fucking explode! You know it only happens in cartoons, but you can't help looking for the steam that's bound to start coming out of his ears any second. You're aware of Effy gasping silently beside you. A quick glance at her face tells you that she's impressed (and perhaps a bit apprehensive, but you can't be sure).

Thomas starts making noises of enjoyment, and you realise he's got a smile on his face. You feel yourself start to relax ever so slightly. You even allow a smile to spread across your face, because you catch sight of Johnny White's face and you think that he really can't do what Thomas just did. Effy lets out a small laugh beside you and you relax a bit more, letting your grin widen.

"Delicious," Thomas declares, and Effy reaches forward and pats him on the shoulder, saying, "Well done, Thomas."

You have to laugh with Effy when Thomas explains that his mother grows the naga jolokia in her garden and it was like the forbidden fruit to him, so naturally he'd sneak them whenever he could get them.

Thomas calmly informs Johnny White that if he wins, Johnny gets no money and has to leave all of them alone forever. That definitely sounds good to you.

Johnny White takes his own handful, and at first he seems to do alright, but with each passing chew, his face turns a brighter red and the veins on his face start to stand out as his eyes start to water, and then there are the noises...

"Oh my God," you murmur in amusement (and a fair amount of disgust) when you realise that he's fucking shitting himself.

Before long you're all laughing at him, and there's definitely no question who the victor is here. You're safe. From Johnny White at least.

* * *

Back at Thomas's (for the victory celebration of course), you find yourself perched half on JJ's lap with Effy beside you, perched on Cook's lap. You're trying to keep a bit of an eye on her to make sure she doesn't tell anyone, and you're simultaneously hoping that if you're sitting so close to them, then Effy won't go off somewhere with him to fuck him.

Spliffs and fags get lit up and alcohol gets passed around. You notice, to your approval, that Emily's sitting on Freddie's lap. It's nice seeing her interact with boys.

You let yourself relax as much as you can and you act pretty normal, allowing yourself to laugh and joke with everyone as you slowly feel yourself getting more and more fucked up from the alcohol that's flooding your system.

Before long, it doesn't even really bother you that Naomi's sitting on the floor leaning against one of Cook's legs and occasionally brushing against one of Effy's legs. Stupid lezza, but then again, she's not been that bad today. She's being almost fun at the moment, seeing as she's not sulking for a change.

The party continues and you find yourself dancing around the main room of the flat, spliff in one hand and booze in the other. You turn to find Thomas at the door with some woman, and your drug addled brain tries to work out who she is and why she's suddenly scowling as Emily and JJ approach you. A second later, you've forgotten all about the woman at the door because Effy and Cook slam into the wall near you and they're all over each other. Effy's hands are tugging off Cook's shirt while his slide all over her body, down under her arse, cupping it and lifting her up. Their lips are mashed together.

You take a big long swig of the alcohol in your hand, trying to drown out the way that your gut feels like it's twisting in two.

JJ starts laughing at pointing at something, but all you can see is Effy and Cook and how they're together and how they've fucked, and are obviously about to do so again, and Emily takes the fucking bottle out of your hand to drink some, so you've lost your only defence. You don't even know why you fucking care. You shouldn't. Obviously. You're not gay. You definitely don't fancy Effy.

Finally you turn your head to see what Emily and JJ are looking at, and you realise that Pandora is standing there in her fucking knickers and nothing else, flashing her tits to Thomas and this woman at the door (and the rest of you in the process). Your pain and confusion from moments before temporarily forgotten at the hilarity of the situation.

Thomas, however doesn't seem to see the amusement. In fact he looks practically terrified, which is strange because he didn't seem even remotely as scared earlier when his life potentially hung in the balance. You hear him call the woman mum in French, and realisation dawns. It's his fucking mother, and she is not looking pleased. Thomas pleads with her about something that you can't understand, but you know enough to wipe the smile off your face. Naomi's appeared behind you and you don't even care that she's so close to you again, because whatever's going on, Thomas is in trouble.

His mother enters the flat with two small children in tow and begins very clearly scolding you in French. You don't know what exactly she's saying, but her tone is clear and the party is definitely over.

Pandora runs away, probably to put on clothes, and you can't help but smile when you see that Effy's climbed off of Cook and is helping pick up the empty bottles and cigarette butts. You all scramble to tidy, actually, and within minutes you're also all out of the door. Thomas apologises and says it was very nice to meet all of you and he'll miss you, paying special attention to Pandora, who's in tears. He turns and walks back inside then, and you all look at each other.

"His Mum told him he was going home," Naomi supplies, and all you can think is that she's a fucking know it all, but then again that knowledge is rather nice to have at the moment, so maybe just this once you'll try not to get annoyed with her for that fact.

"Home like Congo?" you ask instead.

"I'd imagine so," Effy replies. She leaves Cook's side and crosses to a now sobbing Pandora, putting a comforting arm around her. "I'm going to take her home," she announces before heading away.

"We should get home too," you inform Emily after you've stolen a last glance in Effy's direction. You can't help that you're secretly pleased that she's not going to fuck Cook today after all.

"Me too," Naomi agrees and much to your annoyance heads out in the same direction as you.

You wave goodbye to the boys over your shoulder, then continue to walk, pretending not to notice the way the Emily drags behind you a bit and Naomi's walking practically at your side on the opposite side of you from Emily, and she's not even looking at either of you. You've got other things on your mind anyway.

Naomi splits off from you soon (though really not soon enough for your liking) with a small wave and a "See you", and you can't ignore the way that Emily breathes out a long sigh once she's gone. You contemplate asking her what that's about, but you don't. If you're honest with yourself, you're not entirely sure you want the answer.

* * *

You manage to successfully push all thoughts of Effy Stonem out of your head until late that night when Emily's in the shower (because she claims that if she waits until morning you always beat her to it and waste all the hot water, which isn't true and she should fucking get up earlier then, but whatever).

You're lying in bed and you finally let your mind wonder back to the kiss. Your first kiss with a girl (though you're loathed to call it that because first denotes that there could potentially be more, and there definitely won't be because you're not gay). It makes you wet all over again, and you decide that there's no harm in having a bit of a wank, especially given that you're obviously not seeing Danny tonight, and he hasn't actually made you come in several weeks anyway.

You slip your hand down under the elastic of your knickers and start to rub slow circles around your clit. You're surprised at just how wet you are, and when you're mind drifts to Effy's tongue dancing with yours, you grow even wetter.

You're on the edge within minutes, but then your mind flashes to Effy and Cook snogging each other's faces off back at Thomas's, and your fingers stop dead in their tracks. Sure Effy had looked fucking hot as hell, but Cook...And the fact that he was just so all over her and not subtle or finessed or anything. Effy obviously deserves so much better than him, so why would she keep settling?

Your clit throbs and reminds you that there's a task at hand and Emily could be done with her shower any minute. Your mind begins to wonder what Effy looked like when she was kissing you, and that definitely does something for you because your fingers start moving of their own accord again and your mind starts replaying the kiss from earlier like it's on a loop, and before you know it, you're pushed over the edge.

As you wipe your hand off on your sheets your mind can't help but wonder if getting off while thinking about a girl makes you gay. A simple answer presents itself: not if nobody else knows about it. The problem is that Effy always knows too much, always sees too much. And you fucking kissed her back. Like really kissed her back, idiot that you are. She'll read that wrong. She'll read that as you being gay, and you didn't get a chance to tell her that you're not what with all of the ensuing excitement.

You'll have to tell her. You'll have to clarify. You just kissed back as a response, nothing else. It'd have been rude to push her away. She doesn't need to know what you just did or what you were thinking about while you did it. Even Effy won't be able to tell that. She's not _that_ all seeing. Right?


	4. Episode 4

Episode 4

.

.

You're on edge for the weeks following the kiss. You're torn between wanting to be near her to make sure she doesn't tell anyone about it, and wanting to avoid her in case she has told anyone and they take you hanging around her as a sign that you might fancy her. You don't. Obviously. You're dating Danny.

You've been spending rather a lot of time with him recently, actually, and you tell yourself that it has nothing to do with the fact that you're trying not to remember your kiss with Effy or the way it had created a pool of desire in your knickers. You also tell yourself that it has nothing to do with the fact that for the past few days you've been ringing Effy rather a lot, but she hasn't returned a single phone call. You're not sure if you're more worried about her or more annoyed that she seems to be ignoring you.

You're going to see her later, though, you're sure of it. It's Pandora's pyjama party and there's no way that Effy would miss that. It's half of the reason you're going.

If you're honest with yourself, you're not sure how much longer you'll be with Danny. You enjoy your status as a WAG, and the visibility of having him as your boyfriend, but, God, he's an insufferable wanker sometimes! If he fucking suggests a threesome between you and Emily one more time (as if that would ever happen), then he can damn well fuck off and find someone else to fuck his small dick.

Then again, he is a boyfriend. Definitely masculine. Nobody seems to be questioning your sexuality with him around (nobody except Effy that is).

You're walking along the river and he stops to snog you, and all you seem to be able to think about is the way that he really needs to shave a bit closer because his stubble is scraping against your chin. His hand snakes up your shirt and squeezes your boob like it's a fucking horn or something, and you push him away. "Come on, babes! Let's walk a bit more," you suggest. You're not opposed to PDA's as such, but that's a bit much given that there are people nearby trying to have some lunch.

Danny grumbles something that you're quite sure you'd rather not know the exact words of because just his tone implies that it's absolutely filthy, and then he does his sleazy chuckle that you do your best not to find disgusting but tend to fail at.

You start walking again, your arm around his waist and his around your shoulders, and that's when you spot her. She's walking with Pandora. You wrap your arm a little tighter around Danny's waist (no harm reminding Effy that you've got a boyfriend) and you call out to her. You hate the way that your stomach clenches when you realise she doesn't seem overly happy to see you, but you act like you don't notice.

"I've been ringing you loads!" you say, knowing that she's smart enough to hear the underlying accusation without you having to sound sour about it. "You know Danny, he plays for the Bristol Rovers Reserves, yeah?" You turn to look at him with what you hope appears to be an affectionate expression on your face. To your dismay he's already checking her out with a smug, approving little smile.

He chuckles again, and you struggle to keep the disgust off your face as he comments, "Yes! Nice one! Tasty!"

If he thinks he's getting anywhere near her he's sadly mistaken. Still you force a smile on your face. You're used to him checking out other girls and at least Effy genuinely is hot, which is more than you can say for some of the chavs he seems to appreciate. He takes off his sunglasses so that he can check her out better and your stomach tightens, but you try to gaze adoringly at him anyway.

"This is my new best friend, Effy," you introduce her, hoping that the words that are coming out of your mouth are true. You wish they were true, at least. You wish that things were that uncomplicated. You wish that she seemed to want to spend time with you half as much as you want to spend time with her. You wish that she wanted to spend more time with you than with Pandora.

"Cool tits, yeah?" Danny says, and you'd shudder if you weren't positive that Effy would notice it.

Instead you giggle, though it comes out sounding a bit forced and a lot dismayed, even to your ears.

Effy is clearly not amused, and in the blank look she gives him you catch a flash of disgust and dislike in her eyes. Danny probably missed it completely.

"Sorry?" Effy asks, as if hoping she'd heard wrong.

"Nice jugglies, babe. Perky," he clarifies, still obviously ogling her tits.

Jugglies? Really? Who fucking uses that term apart from your wanker boyfriend. Effy's not trying to conceal her disgust at that statement, so you feel like you should step in and say something. You don't really want to piss her off. "Danny!" you scold, trying to keep it light because you don't really want to annoy him too much either. "He doesn't mean it, do you, babes?" you add.

To your complete dismay he replies, "Fuckin' right I do!" He drags his eyes over her a few more times before adding, "Yeah!" approvingly.

"And I'm Pandora!" Panda steps forward, and you're not sure, but you think maybe she's shaking her tits a bit to try to get Danny to notice them. You wonder if she was as uncomfortable with Effy being so obviously ogled as you were. Whatever her motivations, you're thankful that she's broken the awkwardness of the previous conversation.

"Ok," Danny says, obviously not as thrilled with Pandora's attention. He turns back to Effy. "Hey, kid, you should come up the ground, watch the lads train, yeah?" he suggests. "'Cause after, we get some Lambrinis in, we go lucky in the showers."

You're absolutely appalled as you force yourself to laugh along. You can't believe that he just propositioned her like that, and in front of you. Just because you called her your best mate does not mean that you want a threesome with her and your boyfriend! You definitely don't! On the bright side, at least Effy knows that you definitely have sex with men. Only problem is, it's not a big enough upside. He's made the whole situation awkward again in only a few sentences.

"He's joking, right?" Effy says, in a way that lets you know that she doesn't actually believe he is.

Nonetheless you take the out she's offered and reply with, "Um...Yeah. Right. Anyway, can't wait for this party tonight!" you change the subject. "I've got a shitload of weed and pills!" Because you reckon it's the only way that you're going to survive a slumber party at Pandora's house, and it's definitely the only way that you'll be able to be around Effy for an entire night without confronting her about things.

"Weeds? Um...no!" Pandora sounds a bit panicky.

"Cool," Effy cuts her off and shoots you what you think might be a slightly genuine smile. Apparently you're not the only one who's feeling the need to get fucked up tonight. You can't help but wonder why that is.

"Yeah, man! Way safe! Orgy!" Danny adds his two cents, even though you wish he wouldn't. He even gestures to Effy and you and himself as if that's who the orgy might entail. In his fucking dreams.

You finally put your foot down. "You're not coming! Girls only." You turn to Pandora and Effy for support. "Right?"

"Yeah," Pandora confirms eagerly.

"We're gonna tell secrets and get intimate. No boys." As soon as the words have left your mouth, you wished you'd bothered to phrase them differently. A quick glance at Effy lets you know that she didn't miss the implication in your words. It wasn't what you meant, obviously, but she's wearing the first hint a smirk that you've seen cross her face since you ran into her, so maybe it's ok just this once if she thinks it is what you meant.

She unnerves you without her smirk.

Danny, unfortunately catches on as well. "Intimate?"

"Mmhmm," you confirm, unable to take it back now. May as well act like you meant what you said (and if at all possible in an innocent way).

"Yes! Nice one! Take photos, babe!" He laughs in that pervy way of his and you have trouble containing the fact that you're disgusted at the way his brain works.

You decide not to address it and instead change the subject. "So I've got Flying Saucepans and Love Fountains. We're gonna fry!"

Effy seems mildly interested and you feel like you've said something right, until Pandora says, "But, we're doing Twister."

"Cool. You can snort that, right?" you ask, having no idea what she's actually referring to, but not wanting to sound ignorant.

When she replies with, "Not exactly," you force yourself to brush it off. You don't miss the way that Effy snorts in amusement. Obviously she knows what twister is, but whatever! You'll find out.

Danny, of course, decides to interject his thoughts by mumbling, "Love Fountains are mint," into your hair, and you really wish that he'd just fuck off.

"Mum's making brownies," Pandora informs you.

Brownies are good, but seeing as her mum's making them it's bound to not be "special" brownies, and that takes away half the fun of them as far as you're concerned. You're really not sure how to respond.

Besides, you catch Effy once again staring out at the water, furrowing her brow a bit like she's only half following your conversation. She seems a bit off today, and that's worrying you more than you'd care to admit. "You ok?" you finally ask, unable to stop yourself. You're friends, anyway, right? It's ok to be concerned about your friends (even if they've snogged you).

"She's upset because her mum's been making monkey and her dad's gone ape," Pandora supplies, and while you're not entirely sure what she means, you can make an educated guess, and either way it's definitely parent issues (which you can understand because sometimes your parents are just fucking bizarre).

(You try to ignore the small twinge inside at the way that Pandora already knows these things while it seems like Effy wasn't planning on telling _you_ at all.)

Despite your vague grasp of what Pandora's said, you could use a bit of clarification to confirm your suspicions, so you say, "Huh?"

"Bananas!" Pandora adds. "'Cause beardy Steve's been making her do the Funky Gibbon and..."

The look that Effy shoots Pandora is so scathing that even you shrink back. It'd have to be to get Pandora to shut up, you reflect. You try to dissect this new piece of information. From the expression on Effy's face, you can guess that "Beardy Steve", whoever that is, is not her dad. You feel fairly confident in assuming then that Effy's mum's been having an affair. (You wish briefly that Emily were around. She's the smart one. She'd definitely be able to piece the information together with more certainty.)

"I've boobed, haven't I?" Pandora says, catching the way that Effy's glaring at her. (You feel a little bad for the part of you that seems to leap for joy that maybe there's now a wedge stuck in the middle of the friendship that is Effy and Pandora.)

"Yes!" Effy informs her emphatically in a chilly voice.

You turn a sympathetic expression on Effy, trying to imagine how you'd feel if your mum had an affair and then someone else blabbed about that fact. It wasn't a good feeling. (Part of your brain also can't help thinking that Effy's got other things on her mind besides kissing you, so maybe that means that you can relax for the night and not worry about her telling anyone about it.)

"I loves the Funky Gibbon," Danny feels the need to add, and that's really the last straw.

"Danny!" you scold.

"Yeah?" he asks, and you hate how he's just so fucking oblivious. (_But then again, he is a boy,_ the cynical part of your brain thinks.)

"Gonna fuck off? We need girl time," you say pointedly.

"Oh, eh?" Danny questions, the expression on his face informing you that he's not thrilled with the idea.

"Practise your ball skills, babe," you suggest. (He could fucking use the practise too!) You decide to appease him a bit by adding, "I'll do that keepy-uppy thing later, remember?" (It's not even much of a trick, but boys are rather easy to manipulate, and their cock's even more so, you've found.)

"Oh, yeah!" Danny grins. You go in for a kiss that turns into a snog (and you're kind of ok with that fact, because your initial plan of reminding Effy that you're not gay is still valid despite the other things on the girl's mind, and while Danny's still here you may as well take advantage).

You let it go on much longer than you otherwise would have, in actuality, but then you catch sight of Effy followed by Pandora turning to leave, so you break it off. "See you, babes," you say to Danny before turning on your heels and heading after them.

You ignore the way that Danny grumbles behind you, and you growl internally when you think you hear the words "cock tease". You've fucked him way more than he deserves.

.

.

You catch up to Pandora and Effy quickly and, after a moment's hesitation, you fall uneasily into step beside Pandora. You're not really sure if you should broach the subject that Pandora brought up, but Effy doesn't say anything, so you just walk on in silence.

As you approach Pandora's house, Pandora's excitement seems to grow, bouncing off of her in waves until she sprints ahead saying, "Cool! Mum's done the signal!"

The signal turns out to be pink balloons with "Pandora's Pyjama Party" written on them in big, bold letters, and it all strikes you as extremely juvenile. It's the type of thing your mum might've done for you and Emily when you were five, not sixteen. You raise an eyebrow but bite back a comment as Pandora adds, "So everybody knows where my party is."

_And that's a good thing?_ You ask yourself, because really if your mum had put up pink balloons advertising your pyjama party you'd be mortified. Instead you ask, "How many people did you invite?" while trying to repress an amused (and embarrassed) smile. Out of the corner of your eye you catch Effy glancing at you, and for once you truly believe that the two of you are on the same wavelength about things.

"Umm. Four. You, Ef, Emily, and Naomi," Pandora replies.

"Naomi?" you gasp. "Why did you invite her?" You look to Effy for confirmation that it's a bad idea, but instead she's got a bit of a smile on her face and you think that maybe you were never actually on the same wavelength at all. You don't understand why she seems to like the blonde, despite your best efforts.

"Em says I have to or she won't come," Pandora explains, and she appears so innocent that you just can't vent your frustration on her.

So it was Emily then. Fucking backstabbing excuse for sister! Why would she want Naomi there? Just because she'd lied about Naomi being the one to kiss her, didn't mean that she owed the girl anything. Emily wasn't gay, so she didn't want rumours getting out that she was, obviously, so she'd lied. It's not that big of a deal. Emily better not have suggested it because she actually wants to be friends with the fashionably challenged lezza bitch!

"Awww, sweet," Effy says, staring straight at you, corners of her mouth quirking up into a smile.

You don't reply, but you don't return the smile either. You know she's mocking you and Emily both, and you don't appreciate it.

"Come on! We can do brownies and then lick our bowls out!" Pandora energetically breaks the awkward moment that you're sure she was quite oblivious to the existence of to begin with.

Her phrasing makes you smile in an amused way. Effy's grinning too, when you turn back to her, and again you find yourself thinking that perhaps your minds are in the same place (although you know it's only temporarily). "Do you think she knows she sounds filthy half the time?" you voice the question on your mind.

"Sometimes I wonder," Effy replies, and it feels like a bit of a truce is being called between the two of you.

.

.

From the instant you meet her mum, you understand a bit more about Pandora Moon. For starters, her mum is obviously the most overbearing mother in the entire world and has never taught her daughter anything relevant in life like things about boys or dating or drugs, other than "Don't" (which you know from personal experience is not a message that has sunk in).

The house is ridiculously tidy and also ridiculously decorated with pink. The idea that this is a party for a five-year-old, not a sixteen-year-old, enters your head again. That is not helped when Pandora's mum invites you all to help her make brownies because cooking together is always more fun. (You kind of wish that your mum would adopt that mentality because then maybe you'd occasionally get edible food for dinner.)

You're a bit overwhelmed to start with at the "wholesomeness" and childishness of the whole event, but when Pandora starts singing "London's Burning" and her mum joins in in rounds and very obviously expects you and Effy to join in, it really gets a bit much. You do it with what you hope isn't too condescending of a smile on your face, but you can't help giving Effy a look that says, "Is this really happening?" You feel a tickle down in your gut when she returns your look with an amused grin and a shrug. You're sifting flour and an idea hits you, so you pull the packet of MDMA that you bought off a mate of Danny's earlier when you're sure Panda's mum's not looking. You keep singing, but you make eye contact with Effy again and raise your eyebrows in a questioning fashion.

Effy's psychic powers are useful rather than annoying for once when she nods, smiles, and winks at you. (You pretend that the wink didn't make the tickle in your gut grow and spread.) You dump the powder stealthily in, and you can't help the self-satisfied grin that spreads across your face. If anything's going to get you through today (especially given that Naomi's still coming to the party) it's going to be drugs, and Effy seems to feel exactly the same way. You try to remind yourself that you don't really want to be agreeing with her because you're still wary of her, but your brain just won't listen. Not at the moment at least.

.

.

Naomi manages to somehow arrive with your sister. You're not sure who's responsible for that, but to be honest, you're not sure you want to know. Naomi's even got the gall to look nice, like legitimately for once. Her top suits her, and her jean shorts (while definitely _not_ what you'd have chosen) accentuate her long legs.

You have to keep yourself from laughing, though, when Naomi claims Thomas as her boyfriend to keep Pandora out of trouble. Who does the lezza think she's fooling? Apparently, Panda's mum, but then again you hardly find that surprising.

You find yourself seated upstairs on Pandora's bed next to Emily, with Naomi flanking her other side. You're momentarily distracted from the fact that you're in a bedroom with Naomi by the sight of what is apparently Twister_._ Pandora's informed you of the basic rules (and you had to remind yourself that it wasn't attractive to leave your mouth hanging open for so long), and instructed you all that you're to play it later in the evening. Apparently it's "whizzer fun". You're not convinced.

Neither is Naomi by the sounds of it. "Are you shitting me?" she demands.

Pandora must be insane if she thinks that all of you are going to play some game that involves wrapping your bodies around one another (until you become "all human pretzel-y and everything," to quote Pandora). Naomi's there for starters, and you do NOT want to get that physically close to her. She might be tempted to do God knows what. You don't want Emily doing anything with her either.

And then there's Effy...

You definitely, most certainly, absolutely do NOT want to play Twister with Effy. You're not protesting a little too hard inside your own brain. (You're definitely not feeling all tingly at the suggestion of your body intertwining with Effy's.)

"Don't worry. I spiked the chocolate brownies with MDMA," you inform them (trying to remind yourself that you shouldn't worry either). You'll probably all be far too fucked up to play Twister by the time you get around to it.

Emily for some reason seems outraged. You don't know what her fucking problem is. It's hardly like she's never done drugs. It was fucking MDMA that made her kiss Naomi that one night! (Though, now that you think of it, that's probably a good reason to avoid the drug.)

Naomi, for once, actually acts like a normal human being for once. A cool one even. She backs you up. It's definitely a first, and you have to remind yourself not to let your jaw drop in shock. She happens to find the drugging of the brownies as entertaining as you do. She even backs you up against Emily (much to your sister's chagrin, you notice).

"So Katie, you gonna be nice to me now we're twister pals?" Naomi inquires. "I promise not to grab your minge and everything."

You ignore the way that your pussy clenches at the mental image that conjures up. It's Naomi for fuck's sake! You would never, ever want that from her. On the bright side, she's promising it won't happen. Plus she's being relatively cool for a change, so really what's the harm. You snicker. "Ok. Ha, ha. Hands off the muff and we're sorted," you joke back (although if she does touch you anywhere remotely inappropriate you will slap her...definitely!).

When Naomi comes back at you with, "Gotcha, no buffing the beaver," it's almost as if you're making a sort of truce (although you have no doubts that it's a temporary one...at some point Naomi's natural cuntishness is bound to kick in again).

"No groping the growler," you laugh, and as you and she continue in this rather amusing back and forth, you can't help noticing that Emily seems rather underwhelmed. In fact she looks quite put out. You don't know why. She's always on at you to leave Naomi alone, or to try to get on with her, and now that you're doing so she's making a face like she's disgusted by both of you. She needs to make up her fucking mind.

Pandora marches into the room as you and Naomi dissolve into giggles at your latest comic gem. "Hey guys! What do you think?" she asks, carrying a pile of pink. "Mum made them specially, and look!" She holds one of the monstrosities (which you finally realise is supposed to be clothing) up to reveal that it reads "SEXY POO" in sewn on capital letters.

"Jesus," Naomi mutters, and it really must be bad if even Campbell knows that the pyjamas are a fashion disaster.

"So you can have Sexy Poo," Pandora continues, apparently oblivious to your incredulity. She throws the first one to Naomi, then reaches for another. "Or Brainy Poo," she supplies, throwing that one at Emily (and at least that's fitting, but really? Sexy Poo for Naomi?), "Except for me cause I have Panda Poo!" she announces proudly.

"I'm not wearing that!" Naomi exclaims, and you're about to second her, but Pandora looks so distraught when she says, "Why not? It's a pyjama party!" and besides you're obviously feeling a little goofy today if you're getting along with Naomi, so you think, _Fuck it!_

"What the fuck? Give it here," you smile at Pandora, and stand to go take one of the pink monstrosities off of her.

She beams back at you. "Oh whizzer poo! Because look what goes with them!" To your dismay she reaches over and grabs a pair of shorts with the word "BUM" sewn on the arse.

_Lovely,_ you think sarcastically to yourself, but you've committed now, so you take the top anyway.

"Isn't mum wick?" Pandora asks, and all you can think is, _she's wicked something alright!_

You peel off your top first. It's not like you have anything to be embarrassed about. You know your body's banging, and given your new truce with lezza Naomi, you're not worried that she'll touch you at least, and there's not all that much harm in looking, right? Besides, Effy's not there yet, and that's a good thing. You want to get changed before she gets back.

Naomi, Pandora, and Emily follow quickly, and before you know it, you're all standing around in your bras and knickers and there's a pile of clothes on the floor.

Naomi manages to grab a shirt first, but then she gets it stuck pulling it over her head. (You'd make a comment about how her head's clearly too big, but it's not that bad getting along with her at the moment.) You can't help that your eyes flit down her body. It's not like you're checking her out, you're just surprised to find that she's actually got rather nice tits and an attractive frame. She hides it so effectively beneath her god-awful clothing. It's shock that has your gaze lingering. That's all. You're distracted, though, when you see that your sister hasn't moved at all, and when you follow her gaze, you see that it's glued to Naomi's body. That needs to change. Emily's not gay, even if she thinks she is.

You bend over and grab two shirts, shoving one of them into Emily's arms. Fortunately, she snaps out of whatever weird zone she was in and starts to put it on. You understand now why Naomi was having such difficulty, because the fabric is anything but flexible, and really the tops are poorly constructed, but you continue to try tugging it down anyway.

Of course it's that moment that Effy chooses to walk into the room. The top's not even completely covering your tits yet for fuck's sake!

"What the fuck?" Effy inquires, and you force yourself not to freeze as her eyes lock on yours and a small smile tugs up the corners of her lips. You're painfully aware of her eyes trailing up and down your body. You don't feel like she's checking you out so much as trying to make you squirm.

It works.

"Come on, Ef! Pyjamas!" Naomi cuts in, and it's possibly the first time you've ever been thankful that she's opened her big mouth because Effy turns her attention away from you.

"Whatever," she shrugs and walks past you towards the window and begins untying her shirt.

You manage to finish getting yours on as Effy pulls her top over her head. You can't help that your breath catches in your throat. She's not even wearing a bra for fuck's sake! And her back is just incredibly smooth and toned and just...attractive. Every fucking inch of the girl is attractive, and you don't have to see all of it to know that, not to mention her firm, rounded arse that is now just clad in thin knickers.

You definitely do NOT think about what it might be like to kiss down that soft exposed skin while she's lying in bed beside you. You definitely don't crane your neck a bit and catch a glimpse of perfect little side boob. That would be gay and you most definitely are NOT gay. (Even if for a split second your mind, albeit against your express wishes, thinks that it would've liked to be on the other side of the window looking in.)

You hear a noise that shakes you out of whatever the fuck mental state you'd been in.

"What was that?" Emily asks.

"Nothing. Tummy. Too much cake," Effy replies with a smile, and, fuck, if she doesn't turn to face you with the shirt still off, just clutched to her front. You can still see the perfect skin of her perfectly rounded shoulders.

The others giggle and turn their attention away, but you for some reason can't force your eyes to look away from her as she pulls the shirt away from her a bit, exposing more of her chest. She tugs off some of the stitched on letters as Pandora's mum enters the room holding a plate of brownies. From the way she's swaying from side to side, she must have eaten one already, but you still can't take your focus off Effy long enough to appreciate the fact that Pandora's mum being high is rather entertaining.

Instead your eyes widen momentarily as she finally pulls the top over her head and you catch just the quickest glimpse of the underside of pert breasts above a toned, taught stomach before she's covered. Her eyes come up and meet yours as if she knew you were watching her, and the smug grin on her face says that she did. She winks at you before coming and standing at your side, turning her attention to Mrs. Moon.

You tell your heart to beat normally (because the racing it's doing can't be good for you), and force yourself to look forward rather than at her.

Pandora's mum is going on about the brownies, confessing she's already had three, and Pandora reaches out and grabs three of her own. The rest of you grab one as well, sharing a conspiratorial smile as you take your first bites of the warm, chocolate, gooey goodness.

"Wow! Listen to that!" Mrs. Moon exclaims a few seconds later, cupping her ear to hear something that's definitely not there. "Can you hear the music?" She starts to dance slowly, then picks up her speed to some imaginary beat.

Pandora starts to freak out a little, but you notice Effy nodding her head beside you in time with Mrs. Moon and you can't help wondering if this isn't her first brownie either. You glance at Naomi who's grinning, and you have to grin back, because really this situation is just funny.

"Yeah, I'm getting it," Effy hums as she starts to dance as well, and you can't help noticing the graceful way her body moves even in her current fucked up state.

"I'm telling you, that's fucking good shit!" you declare, reaching for a second brownie. You can't wait to feel what they're feeling.

.

.

It's not long before you're all dancing (well, all of you besides Panda, who's too busy fretting in the corner). You can hear it now, the music that Mrs. Moon was hearing (of course she's humming it now too, which helps). You know it, and more importantly, it's catchy and danceable.

Naomi is dancing beside you, and you realise that she's actually rather graceful as well.

Pandora's mum starts undressing, much to your amusement, but you can understand her motivation. It's gotten a lot hotter in the bedroom.

Emily's dancing with Effy, and you feel a twinge of something in your gut that you can't identify, but it passes in a second because you just feel too good in general. You find yourself wanting to dance with someone too...to touch someone...anyone. You move so that you're closer to Naomi, your back brushing against her front as you move together. It feels fucking marvellous!

Effy catches your eye as she continues to dance around turning on some actual music on her way, and you smile back at her. There's no trace of your earlier anxiety left. You're feeling too good.

She works her way around the room, and as you all start singing, she dances up to you. You laugh, because you have to. It's so fun and it feels so good that you can hardly focus on anything else.

You're vaguely aware of Pandora stomping out of the room, but you can't be bothered to worry about her while your eyes are trained on Effy. You're not sure it should be humanly possible to be as beautiful as she is dancing in front of you.

Mrs. Moon starts to get out of hand, and before long she's collapsed on Pandora's bed. You and Effy can't do anything but laugh as Naomi and Emily take it upon themselves to try to carry her to her own room.

You're both left giggling uncontrollably alone in the room together when Effy suddenly sobers and looks up straight into your eyes. "Where's Panda?"

"She ran off," you reply, amazed that for once Effy didn't observe absolutely everything that was going on in the room around her.

Effy frowns, then. "Shit!" she mutters before heading out of the room.

You can only trail after her. You can't help that you want to be around her right now. (It's just the drugs anyway.)

Once you ascertain that Pandora's hiding out in her bathroom, Effy spends about five minutes pounding on the door, trying to get her to open it.

You can't help wondering (possibly a little bitterly) if she would bother taking as much effort to get you to open the door and talk to her if you were the one who was upset. (It's not your fault you're a little jealous of the friendship Effy has with Pandora. There's nothing wrong with being jealous of a friend. People did it all the time!)

Pandora keeps telling her to go away (which you're fairly sure you wouldn't do in the same situation, but then again you've never really stormed away from somebody that you haven't expected to follow after you before).

"It was a joke! It wasn't even me!" Effy tries, and you narrow your eyes at her slightly, because it sounds an awful lot like she's about to sell you out, and you did look to her for her agreement before you did it.

Pandora finally does open the door then and tells Effy that everything is her fault (which is admittedly a bit unfair), but when she explains why exactly she's so upset, you can't help seeing her point a bit.

"Christ's sake, I'll show you how to do a blowjob!" Effy offers in exasperation when Pandora says that Effy's supposed to be telling her how to have sex with her boyfriend, and you know that's the wrong way to go about it. It's not really the point, even if Effy doesn't seem to get that.

"I don't want a blowjob!" Pandora cries before closing the door on Effy's face.

Effy looks more distraught than you've ever seen her. In fact, the hard swallow you see her take is the most emotion you've ever seen her portray. "Panda!" she tries again. "I was just...Panda!" she pounds on the door again.

You decide to intervene, because Effy's persistence is going to get her nowhere, and if Pandora's anything like Emily, then sometimes she just needs some time and space to cool off. "Um...she's upset," you try explaining.

She turns to face you coldly, and you see that a tear has even trickled down one of her cheeks and her stunning blue eyes are rimmed red. It's the most shocking development of the day so far. "Do I ever get to be upset? Do I ever get to be anyone but me?" she demands, her voice cracking.

You're momentarily stunned into silence. You hate seeing her like this. It's virtually heartbreaking. On top of that, your drug addled brain can't really think up a response to that. Part of you can only think that of course she can't. She's Effy. It's who she has to be. Another part of your brain is telling you that that's not the point.

She turns and disappears into Pandora's mum's loo, and you have to chase after her, because you really didn't mean to upset her. "Ef!" you call out.

"Fuck off!" she growls as the door shuts in your face.

"Effy, just..." you say to the closed door. "Panda!" you try to the other closed door. You get no response from either. "Oh for Christ's sake!"

You stalk away and discover Naomi and Emily disappearing the stairs. "Where you going?" you call after them.

"Wine, I want wine!" Naomi shouts back to you.

You watch as Emily stumbles after her. You'll have to have a talk with her at some point about how it's weird to just follow after people like that. You glance back towards the bathrooms and remember that you've got bigger problems right now. A drink might help you deal with them. "Hurry up with it!" you encourage.

You return down the hallway to the bathroom that Effy's currently in and knock on the door. "Ef, I'm sorry. I was just trying to help. I didn't mean anything," you try to explain. "Effy!" you pound a little harder.

She doesn't respond, and you're about to wonder off to get some of that wine when the door clicks open.

You push the door open slowly and come face to face with Effy, who's apparently managed to get at least some control over herself in the minutes in between, though her eyes are still rimmed red. She reaches past you, never breaking eye contact, and shoves the door closed.

"It's funny," she comments in a voice that makes it clear that she doesn't mean it in the "ha ha" kind of way, "how people often say they're sorry, but rarely show that they are."

You don't even have a split second to absorb that remark (let alone protest that you are genuinely sorry) before her lips are on yours and your back is slammed against the door, her entire body pressing into yours, pinning you in place (in case your body actually started functioning well enough to try to get away, which seems unlikely).

Her hands cup your face at first, until your lips start to kiss back, caressing first her own lips and then her tongue with your own. She tastes exquisitely sweet, like the brownies you've just all consumed, but there's a natural Effy flavour in there as well that you wish you could taste more of. Her smell, her taste, her feel, everything about her is overwhelming your senses. Her hands move deftly down your sides and begin to slide up your shirt, blazing a trail of fire along your skin that shoots straight to your core.

It's ridiculous really the way that your body responds to her touch, the way that you're suddenly tingling all over, your whole body practically humming in excitement. It doesn't mean anything, of course. It can't. You're not gay. To the best of your knowledge (even though she's now kissed you twice) Effy's not gay either.

She's kissing you hard, bruisingly almost. It's as if she's taking out the frustrations and emotions that she's been feeling today on your lips. Unfortunately, that doesn't make it any less pleasant, and you just can't seem to bring yourself to push her away, even as her fingers trace up to your tits and knead them roughly through your bra. In fact your hands wrap around her, pulling her in closer, tangling in her hair. You can't help the way you kind of moan into her mouth.

That apparently just spurs her on, because she moves her lips to your neck and begins to kiss down it. You'd never really realised how sensitive your neck was before now, but your eyes flutter closed as her lip latch on around where it meets your collarbone and her fingers continue to work at your tits, pinching your now rock hard nipples through the fabric of your bra.

It shouldn't feel as good as it does, you tell yourself, but it doesn't work. Your knickers are soaked through, and you're honestly not sure if you've ever been this horny before in your life. It still doesn't mean anything, but, fuck, you don't want this to stop. _Except,_ you tell yourself as she nips at your neck, _it has to_. You don't know exactly why she's doing this, but it's not because she somehow likes you and wants to get in your pants (not that you'd want that anyway, because obviously you don't). She's probably doing it to feel something, to escape from her issues like her mum being a slag. It's not something you should be indulging. It's not something she should be doing. (But why the hell does it have to feel so fucking good?)

You push her gently. "Ef, stop! What're you doing?"

She looks up at you through hooded eyes, obviously confused as her brows furrow.

You realise, then, when you take in her puffy lips and messed up hair, that you were just snogging the hell out of Effy Stonem. It's wrong. Everything about where you are and what you were just doing and who you were doing it with is just so fucking wrong.

You set your jaw hard. "I'm not gay, Effy. You need to stop kissing me like I am," you inform her coldly as you extract her hands from under your shirt with possibly a bit more force than is actually necessary.

Effy snorts, then and her eyes clear up instantly, in a way that you don't even think should be possible. You're sure that you're blushing under her gaze. It would be impossible not to with the way that her eyes feel like they're boring into your brain, into your very soul. It's like she sees right through you. You squirm uncomfortably.

"Right, Katie," she says, but she's smiling at you in a wicked kind of way that sends a chill down your spine, and you can't help feeling like she doesn't actually believe you. She leans in then, and places another kiss on your lips, and instead of moving away like you know you should you let her. "You're more like your sister than you think."

You close your eyes and swallow hard, taking a deep breath before you look at her again, and she's still grinning at you with a knowing look on her face. She licks her lips, then presses them together for a second, and shrugs nonchalantly. "Shame really. Bet you'd actually be a wicked shag," she comments before reaching around you to open the door, then slips past you, brushing her body against yours deliberately it seems. She lingers just past you. "Guess I'll have to find someone else to get me off tonight."

You lean heavily against the wall once she's done, rolling her last words over and over again in your head. You sincerely wish that your stomach would stop churning and that your brain would stop thinking that it was a threat. It doesn't matter who Effy fucks. It doesn't make a difference to you. As long as it's not Cook, because he's just a wanker and she deserves better, obviously. Besides, who else is she going to fuck? It's just girls here. She wouldn't really fuck a girl. Right?

You pretend that your stomach doesn't flip at the idea and you look at yourself in the mirror. Your own lips are red and a little puffy, your face is flushed and your makeup's a bit smudged. You turn the tap on and run the water cold, splashing a bit of it on your face. You take a few deep breaths as you fix your makeup, trying to get control of yourself again.

You look yourself straight in your deep brown eyes and see a hint of fear lingering there that you have to stamp out. "Not gay!" you tell yourself strictly. It sounds forceful, believable even, and you watch determination settle onto your features. Good, that's settled then.

Now to salvage this party. You straighten your ludicrous pink top and exit the bathroom, head held high. You tell yourself that you're not going to look for Effy. You've said what you had to say to her. Any time spent alone with her is probably inadvisable, just for right now. Besides, she's just your friend, and you think it's natural to spend at least some time away from even your best friend. (Now if only you believed that you don't really want to go find her.) You head to the bedroom where the plate of brownies has been discarded and pop another one in your mouth. Your high needs a bit of a boost, and it's exactly what's needed to get this party back on track. You make your way downstairs, and you can't help but notice that you don't see Effy on the way, but it's ok. She's probably just off realising that she made a mistake in kissing you because neither of you is gay. Still, you can't help glancing back up the stairs, just in case either she or Pandora decides to appear. They don't.

You turn and look out the kitchen window and see that at least some people are having fun. Your sister and Naomi are bouncing around like idiots on the bouncy castle that Pandora has in her yard. It's really childish, you think, but at the same time, you have to admit that it looks like a lot of fun. You're contemplating going out and joining them as they both manage to collapse onto the floor of the bouncy castle, and you grin at their inability to stand up properly. Your sister climbs on top of Naomi, and for a second you think that it's just on her way to standing up again, except for all she does is look down at Naomi, her arms on either side of the girl's head.

Your smile is wiped clean off your face when a moment later Emily leans down, and even though her fringe has fallen down and is obstructing your view a bit, you know that they're kissing. There's no way that their faces could be that close and their lips not touch. And it's wrong! It's so fucking wrong! Because it's not that lezza bitch Naomi in control. It's not her on top influencing your sister, putting the moves on her. It's the fucking other way around! Emily's in control, and even though Naomi reaches her hands up to hold Emily's back and pull her a little closer, you know, deep down, in the pit of your stomach, that Emily's fully aware of what she's doing, and, what's more, wants to be doing it. It's wrong, though, and it can't be happening. Not really. (What makes it so much worse is that somewhere, deep down, you feel something akin to jealousy and want, and that's just beyond wrong!)

You can't believe that you thought Naomi didn't look too bad earlier. What a joke. Lying beneath your sister, pulling her closer, she looks like the little slut you know she is! Before your thoughts can turn even more vicious, a familiar honking of a car horn draws your attention.

But no! It can't be! You told him it was just girls. Fuck! You look out the front window and recognise the car...And the four others with it. For fuck's sake! This is the last thing you need. Especially after what happened earlier! What if Danny fucking knows just from looking at you that you've been snogging someone else? Except, of course, he wouldn't, because he's never that fucking observant! But what if Effy re-emerges and tells him? She wouldn't, would she? "Shit!"

You open the front door, slightly in shock, momentarily forgetting that you're still wearing that stupid pink shirt. Danny's shouting your name, disrupting the entire fucking neighbourhood. "What's going on kidder?" he asks you when he spots you. "The lads!" he cheers, holding up two bottles of champagne, and they all cheer. All of them. He's brought his entire fucking football team back. Plus half of their WAGs. Seriously, what the fuck! And here you are looking like...well, like you're at a child's pyjama party.

He basically talks over you when you try to remind him that he's not supposed to be there. They've lost again apparently (like that's a fucking surprise...they're a shit team). He parades the guys past you one at a time, and one stops to leer at your outfit. You shoot him a steely glare on your way past.

Seriously, could this night possibly get any worse?

.

.

After half an hour of trying to tidy up after Danny's mates and trying to convince him that they really need to leave, you give up. It's not your house, and Pandora's mum is still fucking out for the count, so why bother.

Effy reappears another half hour in, when you'd just about forgotten about the events earlier in the evening. She looks kind of...well, fucked, if you're honest. You pretend that you don't feel slightly nauseous at the thought of her having fucked any of the guys that are now here. She shoots you a questioning look across the sea of people, and you shrug hopelessly.

She makes her way towards you. Half of you wants to run, while the other half wants to talk to her, to get her support, to make sure she won't fucking tell Danny (or anyone) anything. You end up heading towards her, ignoring Danny's complaints, and her hand clasps onto your arm as one of the guys bumps carelessly into her, practically knocking her into you.

"Alright?" you ask automatically.

She smiles up at you coyly. "Of course, now you've got me," she replies, and it feels like a jab, so you pull your arm away quickly.

You lead her towards the nearest door and head outside. You freeze when you catch sight of the bouncy castle, remembering the last thing you saw happening there. There's no sign of either Naomi or your sister now though. Thank God! That's the last thing you fucking need, is those two confirming all of Effy's suspicions! They were clearly just high! It wasn't like they'd have done that sober! Well, Emily wouldn't have at least! It's the MDMA. It was what did it last time and it's obviously what did it this time.

You approach the castle and sit down heavily with a sigh. "Fucking Danny just showed up, yeah?"

"You've chosen such a winner as a boyfriend," she comments dryly, leaning against the edge of the bouncy castle, managing to look cool even though she's wearing her pink pyjama top (which reads only BRA) with boots on and she's fucking leaning against a big, inflated castle. Only Effy could pull that off, you're certain of that.

Still, she's insulting you, or well, not you specifically. She's insulting Danny, and at the moment, you couldn't agree more with what a tosser he is, but he's still your boyfriend, and she's kind of insulting your taste in men, so you feel like you should defend him, or yourself at least. "He's alright, really. He just makes stupid decisions sometimes," you insist.

"Like every time he opens his mouth?" Effy suggests, her lips curling up slightly.

"Look, you can't tell him, ok? You can't tell anyone! I dunno what you were trying to prove, but, like, I'm not like that, ok?" you demand.

Effy studies you for a minute, and again you feel like she's seeing into your very soul. She shrugs eventually, and comes to take a seat next to you. You do your best not to stiffen at her proximity to you, but your stomach is fluttering and your heart rate's just increased. "It's a party, Katie. You need to relax and have fun."

You take a deep breath, before you trust your voice to be steady enough to reply, "I am having fun!"

Effy shoots you a look that lets you know that she doesn't believe that for a second. "And did you have any fun earlier?" she asks, looking straight in your eyes.

You freeze for a second, but then roll your eyes. "I'm not gay."

Effy smiles then. "That's not what I asked."

You shake your head, and her smile widens.

"Shame. If you'd relaxed a little, you might've enjoyed it," she informs you. "I know I did," she adds after a beat.

You open your mouth to respond, but it's suddenly gone completely dry. You clear your throat uncomfortably and resist the urge to move a little further away from her. She'd read too much into it if you did. You know she would.

"Why are you with him, Katie?" she asks after a few moments of awkward silence that have you doing your best not to squirm in your seat, and have you extremely fascinated by your chipping nail polish.

You frown at her. The obvious answer should be that you fancy him, but sitting out here, in the cool night air with her piercing blue eyes staring at you, her face framed beautifully by the light streaming from the house, you just can't bring yourself to say it. Especially not right now when you're rather annoyed at him for just fucking showing up tonight with, like, everyone. "He's fit," you reply, aware once you've said it that you didn't sound convincing at all, but you did sound rather shallow.

She lets out a low laugh, but it sounds hollow.

Another silence descends on the two of you, but it's more comfortable this time. You can hear the music pounding from inside the house and you find yourself bopping your head absently in time with the beat. You glance sideways at Effy and see that she's staring at the house too, but it's a vacant stare, as if she's not really seeing it at all.

"Sorry about your mum and dad," you offer softly.

Her response isn't what you expect (but then again it rarely is, you think). She turns cold eyes on you, and while for a moment you think you catch pain flashing in them, but then she's simply scowling at you. "People always fuck up everything. It's our nature."

She stands then, and you stand with her, feeling like you should apologise again, although you're not entirely sure what you'd be apologising for. When she turns back to you, it's with a forced smile and a gleam of something you can't identify in her eye. "Come on, Katie. Let's go get even more fucked up and dance...give your boyfriend a show even," she suggests, before turning and heading towards the house in long graceful strides.

You follow after her, wary of her last sentence, but unsure of how to stop it. It turns out, though, that your worry is unnecessary, because all she wants to do is dance. She grabs a cup off the first guy she spots and takes a large swig before passing it off to you. You sniff it, and it smells like a cross between rubbing alcohol and IRN BRU. You risk a sip anyway. It's ridiculously strong, and you shiver as it burns down your throat. Effy starts to dance against you once you're in the middle of the throng of people. She turns to face you with a grin, continuing to dance (a little more provocatively than you're comfortable with, given what else has transpired this night), and grabs the plastic cup back out of your hand. You can't deny that it feels good when she brushes against you, and she closes her eyes, just moving with the rhythm, so you feel less self-conscious, less under scrutiny. You find yourself starting to relax and have a little fun.

That fun is shattered when a few minutes later Danny dances up to the two of you, clearly leering. You can practically see the wheels turning in his head as he checks you both out, and you can't help but scowl at him.

"He, he, he! Fuck yes, ladies! Could you dance a little closer together?" he coaxes, pushing his body into the side of the two of yours.

Effy looks up sharply with those crystal clear blue eyes. They bore into you for a second, and she grins smugly at you before dancing away.

You can't help wondering why you feel more like hitting Danny than this girl who seems to love to fuck with your life. Danny doesn't give you a chance to wonder for long as he practically gropes you on the dance floor.

When you look around fifteen minutes later, you can't find Effy anywhere in sight.

You pretend that you don't miss her a little.

.

.

You finally shove Danny out the door at around two in the morning. Half his friends have already filtered out during the course of the night, and the rest seem to be making their way out. He tries to convince you to go back to his, reminding you that you promised to do your "keepy uppy thing" to him. You really don't feel like rewarding him for being such a complete dick all day, though, so you turn him down, for once, too tired of him to give a damn if it means the end of your relationship or not.

.

.

When you get home, Emily's in her bed, facing the wall. You're about to wake her up because you've just remembered you fucking saw her snogging that lezza bitch earlier tonight, and you really need to make her promise that she'll stay away from MDMA from now on if it only seems to gay her up, but then you hear her sniffle, and you realise she's not asleep after all.

You change quickly and then climb into bed with her, wrapping a protective arm around her as her body shakes in sobs. This is fucking Naomi's fault, you just know it. You don't know why, or how (and something in your gut says you probably don't want to know), but you know it's her fault nonetheless. You'll make her pay for this. Nobody fucks with your sister (but you that is).

Emily grabs your hand and holds on tightly, wrapping your arm closer around her.

You kiss her hair gently, and whisper, "It's ok," to the back of her head. After fifteen minutes, her sobs subside. A few minutes and a nose blow later and her breathing is starting to even out. You start to let yourself relax too.

"Thanks," you hear her murmur, still sounding a bit stuffy.

You don't respond for a while because, now that she's not crying anymore, something is weighing heavily on your mind. "Ems?"

"Yeah?"

"Promise me you're not gay," you plead into the darkness.

You feel her stiffen beside you, and you swallow hard, afraid that that's your answer. After what feels like an eternity, she brokenly croaks out, "I promise."

Your mind clings to her words, but somewhere, deep in the pit of your stomach, you recognise them for the lie they are.


	5. Episode 5

**A/N: This is the next installment of "random shit I have on my computer that I never posted". The first third of this chapter or so was already written, so I just finished up the chapter, and here it is. Keep in mind, I don't have partial chapters of every story, so your personal favourites may never get an update. Sorry if that happens to be the case. Thanks to FitchSwitch for reading this over for me as always. **

**Disclaimer: I don't own Skins or the characters (but if I did, this would definitely have been Katie's inner monologue for series 3). **

**.**

**.**

**Episode 5**

.

.

Danny doesn't phone you the day after Panda's party, and you can't be arsed to ring him either. Not when Emily's being more mousy than usual, and Effy randomly texts you saying, "Thanks for the fun."

She probably just means that thanks to the MDMA you so kindly provided, the night was kind of fun...at times. She couldn't mean when you two were in the bathroom together and she...No. Definitely not what she meant.

Just to be safe, you don't text back.

Anyway, when you still haven't heard from Danny after another two days, you decide to check up on him. You need a boyfriend. Especially now.

You text him, but get no immediate reply. Then again, he could be at practice (God knows the team fucking needs it), so you go online to the Bristol Boys Banter Board website where there's a list of all practices, including those scheduled at the last minute.

You catch sight of a new heading labelled Party Night and dated the same day as Pandora's party. You click out of curiosity, hoping there aren't any pictures of you wearing those god awful pyjamas. You quickly realise that these aren't pictures from Pandora's house. It looks like there was another party afterwards at one of the guy's houses. You think it looks like Marco's house (at least from what you can remember from the last party that you went to there, which isn't much). You skim through a few of the pictures, noting how obviously wasted everybody is. You can't help wondering, as you see a shot of a girl who's lost her top being sandwiched in between two of the guys, if this is really the life you want to be involved in. You're not really as shallow as they all actually are, despite your best efforts to act that way, and the lifestyle, while glamorous at times, lately just feels draining.

You're about to scroll down when you see a shot of your fucking boyfriend with his tongue on what is very clearly a nipple that is sure as hell not yours. "What the fuck!" you growl. It's Melina, fucking slag. She's always hanging around the Rovers' parties trying to steal somebody else's guy. Looks like there's whipped cream on her fucking tits. And Danny, well, fucking Danny is just going to town, loving every second of it obviously, given that he's giving a fucking thumbs up to the camera.

A myriad of emotions pounds through you, practically bowling you over. Hurt first (though it's hurt pride more than anything else), then sadness (at status you'll lose, not to mention the handy facade), followed by relief (because you won't have to deal with Danny at his less pleasant moments like when he's trying to ram his overly large tongue down your throat constantly in private or when he's leering at your friends with you right there once you break up with him), then annoyance (that he's such a twat), and finally outright anger (because what kind of an arsehole thinks that he can fucking get away with this?).

Seriously, who the fuck does Danny think he is? Fucking wanker.

"Right," you mutter to yourself determinedly once you've calmed down a bit, "if he's going to post shit on there, there's no reason I can't too." A plan's formulating in your head, and you need to put it into action while you're still holding onto some of that anger (because you know that at some point in your near future you'll just feel grateful that you've rid yourself of someone who so clearly does not deserve you).

You go to your closet and consider what to put on. Something that shows off your cleavage, definitely. Danny always was a tits kind of guy (obviously). You'll give him a taste of just what he's been missing. You don't want to look trashy though. Something that's got a bit of class, just so those stupid WAGs you've been socialising with won't have as much opportunity to badmouth you like you're sure they always have the moment you turn your back anyway. It's their way, after all. It's not like you haven't done it to them, too.

While you're in there you notice a top that Danny bought you, which reminds you of the skirt he bought you, and the stupid teddy bear. You postpone your plan just a little longer so you can gather up everything he's ever gotten you, lingering only on the especially expensive diamond heart necklace that he'd given you. You put it on. You'll keep that. Everything else can fucking go.

You double check that the webcam on your laptop still works and is aimed in the right direction. You turn it on to record and take a seat, vindictive smile plastered on your face.

"Danny Guillermo, you greasy fuck, you're dumped," you begin.

.

.

When your message is done, you save it and post it.

You can't help feeling a little proud of your little "fuck you" to him. He deserved it. Maybe you'll even put a kink in his love life, though you doubt it, because there was always another WAG waiting to take your place, and they won't care that he's got a small fucking dick and no patience (or stamina) to bother making sure they come.

You turn off your computer and take a deep breath. It's done. You're now officially single.

.

.

Your phone vibrating startles you. You'd been expecting Danny to get in touch, and you know that he'll be absolutely irate, but you just can't be arsed to deal with it, so you ignore it.

It's not until you're getting ready for bed and about to plug in your phone to charge that you bother to check it. Apparently it wasn't Danny that called you earlier. Instead, there's a text from Effy.

Your breath catches in your throat when you realise for the first time what exactly being single might entail, especially where one Effy Stonem is concerned. She's already got some mistaken idea in her head that you're gay. This will just make her think so even more once she finds out, you're sure of it.

You open the text and feel your heart drop through the pit of your stomach.

_I see ur single...Interesting._

"Fuck," you mutter.

"What?" Emily asks from her bed.

"Nothing," you shake your head.

She frowns for a second, but doesn't say anything. She's doing that more and more these days. It's not so strange to have her do it with others, but with you...You can feel her pulling away. You don't like it at all.

"I still can't believe you posted that video," she says.

"Why not? He fucking deserved it!" you defend yourself.

"Yeah, I know. I just thought you'd never realise that," Emily replies. "Do you have any idea how many times he propositioned me to have a threesome with you two?"

You can't help looking rather sheepish at that. "Sorry," you offer. He was an even bigger tosser than you'd thought, obviously.

You turn your attention back to your phone and the message that's still lingering there. You can envision the smug smirk on Effy's face, hear her voice saying "interesting" in a way that suggests so much more.

"He was a cheating wanker. I deserve better," you type out and hit send.

A few minutes later your phone vibrates again.

_Obviously. _

The reply sends a shiver down your spine. You wonder which part of what you said she thought was obvious.

You resolve to find another boyfriend. Soon.

.

.

"How'd you find out I was single?" you can't help but ask next time you see Effy, leaning calmly against the building at school, having a smoke.

"You did post a video on the internet," Effy points out. "It's become quite a hit on YouTube. Panda linked it to her facebook account too."

"It's on YouTube?" you ask, feeling a bit overwhelmed. "How the hell did it get on YouTube?"

Effy shrugs nonchalantly, like she really doesn't give a damn (and knowing her, she probably doesn't). "You post something on the internet, it's apt to spread."

"Fuck. Well, you know what? He fucking deserves it," you decide.

"Plus your tits look fucking mint in that first shot," Effy comments dryly.

Your head shoots up and you stare straight at Effy, trying to read her and find out what the fuck she might've meant by that comment, but she's just half smiling mysteriously like always. "Fuck off," you mutter.

She shrugs again, drops her cigarette butt onto the ground and grinds it out with her heel before turning and walking along the wall towards the door.

You hadn't really meant it like that. You hadn't really wanted her to go away. "Effy, wait," you call out and chase after her.

She doesn't stop, but it's not like she's gone far so you catch her easily. You can't help wondering why it seems like everyone's always chasing Effy. Does she ever really want to be caught? Like, _really_ caught.

"You never replied to my other text," Effy comments, and even though she's said it softly, you still look around wildly to make sure no one else is within earshot, not that they'd even know what the text had read or what it was referring to (not that you're sure you know) if they had been.

"Which one's that?" you ask, attempting to act cool, but she lets out a small snort and smirks at you, letting you know that you've failed miserably. Cunt. She's enjoying fucking with you, for fuck's sake.

"You know, Katie, you really should come to terms with certain things." Effy stops, turning to face you so abruptly that you almost walk into her.

Instantly your heart rate is through the roof and you're having trouble breathing. She's just so close. The hairs on her crossed arms brush against your skin. You swallow hard.

"I know I had fun at Panda's party. I know you had fun, too. Now you just have to know it. It's not the end of the world, Katie," Effy challenges, one eyebrow raised cockily.

You wrack your brain for any kind of an intelligent reply (preferably a denial that you have any idea about what she's talking about), but none comes to you.

Effy simply smirks, and leans in. Before you can think to stop it, her lips ghost against yours, sending a shiver straight down your spine.

"See?" Effy continues. "Fun." She turns and walks through the doors, leaving you standing there stunned.

She's just fucking kissed you, again, at fucking school, and you fucking let her. What the fuck is wrong with you? You look around again, hoping and praying that no one was around to witness the biggest slip in your facade ever. For once, your prayers are answered.

You wish you could tell yourself that you'll avoid her at college from now on and actually mean it, but you can't because you don't. You'll keep wanting to hang out with her, no matter how dangerous you know she is to you. You're not gay, though. She's wrong about that. Even if you did happen to enjoy kissing her (and you're still trying desperately to convince yourself that you didn't), it doesn't make you gay, right? Because then Emily would be gay (because she certainly seemed to enjoy kissing fucking Naomi Campbell, God only knows why), and Emily can't be gay because she promised she wasn't.

(You tell yourself, as you trail after her into the building, that you don't like Effy Stonem. Not like that, at any rate. You desperately wish you'd believe that, too.)

.

.

Despite your initial panic, by the time English rolls around, you find yourself looking forward to seeing her.

It probably doesn't help that in your perusing of the school's males, attempting to find someone who might make an all right boyfriend, you impossibly find yourself comparing them to her. Of course that doesn't fucking work, and instead you find yourself thinking things like, "Effy's much cooler," and "Effy would laugh at me if I tried to date him." (There are more disturbing things you think, as well, like "I bet Effy's a better kisser than he is," but you push those from your mind as quickly as possible).

You walk in to class and you see her sitting there, coolly, calmly, in her own little world staring at the desk and seeing who knows what. She looks up and her eyes meet yours for a split second, and, God, is it possible that you'd forgotten how fucking blue they are? There's almost, you think, (Not that you'd swear on a Bible about it or anything) the vaguest hint of a smile flickering across her lips, but then it's gone and someone's walking in behind you anyway, so the sort of, potential flicker of a smile probably wasn't even meant for you (although you can't really think of anyone else it would have been meant for, if it did indeed happen).

There's an empty seat next to her, but there are a multitude of reasons why you shouldn't sit there and only two reasons why you should (and one of them you simply can't accept), so you find one part way around the room from her instead.

Josie starts her lecture on some Shakespeare book you haven't read and haven't bothered to quiz Emily about yet, and you contemplate, not for the first time, that your teachers here might genuinely be certifiably insane. She talks to her fucking hand, which she's named Gerald (and, God, you do NOT fucking want to think how depressing HER sex life must be), when the class refuses to participate, which might not be so bad, if it didn't talk back and they didn't get somewhat off-topic sometimes. Like, seriously, it's fucking pathetic.

You find your eyes drifting back towards Effy (once you've decided that it's probably best for your sanity if you don't actually listen to the words coming out of Josie's mouth) and you're surprised to find that she seems to be looking your way as well. That fact alone ties your stomach in knots (for reasons you'd rather not explore), but then she gives the teensiest tilt of her head in Josie's direction and rolls her eyes with a slight smirk gracing her lips, and you can't help but smirk back like you're in on the same joke.

The moment is ruined, though, by fucking Freddie's late arrival to class. Okay, so he's a rather pretty boy, and he's certainly got the height thing going for him, but honestly he's done very little but act like a sad sap so far this year, and you're not overly impressed.

Effy glances up at him, then away, and something about the way that he looks back at her makes your stomach turn.

There's an empty seat next to Cook, too, and you see Cook tap at the desk with his pen as an open invitation, but Freddie looks away, and walks purposefully towards the seat next to Effy as Josie natters something about how Freddie's going to fail his A-levels. Effy doesn't move as Freddie sits down next to her, but she does seem to tense. She stares straight ahead, not making eye contact with anyone (including you). You think maybe she's just uncomfortable with the way that he's clearly got this sappy crush on her, but then you see her fingers start to move as Josie reverts back to a lecture (that you're 90% sure no one's actually listening to) after a brief interlude from Panda, who is ridiculously beyond confused (even _you_ know the difference between Harry Potter and Shakespeare). Effy's fingers sort of caress the back of Fred's hand, and really, what the fuck? Like, genuinely, what the bloody fuck? Is she encouraging him for sport? Does she actually like him? Then why has she been kissing you and shagging Cook every available opportunity. No, she's just fucking with him too, just like she's fucking with all of you. The world is a game to her and you're all just fucking players. You're pawns that she's moving around.

Your internal sulking is interrupted by none other than Naomi Campbell. For once, you pay attention because it's better than thinking the things that you're thinking (and feeling the way that you're feeling, which involves quite a bit of nausea) - at least, you hope it is.

"Hamlet's basically a teenage boy. He's got all these desires, but he doesn't have the bottle to reach out for them. So he goes mad and wanks off about Ophelia, and ends up SO boring somebody has to kill him," Naomi is saying, and it's actually semi amusing for once, so you smirk.

"I'm not sure that's right. There's no wanking in Hamlet," Josie mumbles, confused, rummaging through the book just in case she's wrong.

"Mmm, yeah, there is," Naomi counters. "Loads. Only they call it soliloquising."

Now THAT is genuinely funny, so you snort softly, but then Cook's laughing too, and you can't believe that you had the same sense of humour as him, so you stop shake your head instead. You contemplate looking back at Effy, but you know that Freddie's still going to be sitting there next to her, giving her those puppy-dog eyes and begging her to like him back, and, honestly, you don't think you can stomach it, so instead you glue your eyes to the book for the rest of the class, tracing the lettering with your eyes over and over until you're sure you'll see it when you close your eyes tonight.

It's not until the bell rings and you can leave class that you dare look up again. Freddie's standing by the table, clearly waiting for Effy, but Effy looks straight at you and raises her eyebrows. You swallow hard and shrug, not sure what she's asking, and you probably really don't want to know anyway. You hang back, feigning wanting to talk to Emily, just as Freddie gives up and walks out of the classroom. Effy follows just after, though you tell yourself that's more coincidence than because she actually wanted to.

Nonetheless, you leave the class feeling kind of funny, and not in a good way. You're having a harder and harder time pushing away the feelings that try to bubble to the surface every time Effy's around, and Freddie mooning over her is not helping anything, so you do your best to avoid them both for the rest of the day, just to be on the safe side.

It doesn't mean anything, you tell yourself. Not really. (Especially not the way you almost miss her for the rest of the day.)

.

.

It's a few days after the English class incident, and you've actually managed to avoid both Effy and Freddie fairly well, and Emily's buggered off to some pub quiz thing (though you're pretending that you didn't see her run down to the corner where you caught a flash of peroxide blonde - you don't want to think that she's just going to the pub quiz thing to be with Naomi), when you decide to go for a walk. Something just to clear your head. Maybe some super fit bloke will see you and offer you a ride in his expensive car and whisk you away to some exotic country where you can forget all about Effy and Danny and Freddie and fucking college and just everything here in fucking Bristol.

Instead, you see Effy emerging from some random house with some random bloke just behind her. The sex hair she's wearing is all the tell-tale sign you need to know exactly what they'd just been up to, and you feel suddenly queasy. At least it's not Freddie or Cook, you tell yourself. At least this bloke looks semi-decent. He's eyeing her up and down, though, in a way that very clearly says, "I've just seen you naked and now I can see you that way anytime I want in my head."

Effy hasn't noticed you yet, and you're about to turn around and walk the other way when she suddenly turns and looks up in your direction. There's a vague smile that runs across her face, and you think she might be fucked up on something, though you couldn't say what.

"Katie!" she calls out, and now you're pretty much stuck.

If you ignore her calling out to you, she'll wonder why and probably read too much into it, but if you approach her, then you're no longer effectively avoiding her. She solves your dilemma by walking towards you, with the guy's arm around her shoulders.

"I feel like I've barely seen you lately," Effy comments, and even though there's a haziness to her eyes, there's also a pointedness to her words, and you know she's never as out of it as she seems.

"Been busy," you reply, wishing that that was actually the case.

"Me, too," Effy says with a smirk and a glance up at the guy with her. "Right...?"

She hesitates for a moment too long which leaves the guy looking a bit put out and you feeling even more nauseous.

"Mike," the guy fills in and he extends a hand that you wish you could avoid taking, but don't because you were ingrained with manners at some point in your life.

"Katie," you reply.

"Katie goes to school with me," Effy supplies. "We hang out sometimes. Don't we, Katie?"

The look that Effy gives you, just a little waggle of her eyebrows, makes your face flush a deep red, and you hate yourself for it. "I guess," you reply noncommittally while your eyes become glued to the pavement.

"Well, we'd better be going. Places to go and whatnot," Effy says, apparently having decided that she's toyed with you enough for one encounter, and she takes Mike by the hand and wonders back up the road.

You stay in place, eyes still locked firmly on the dark grey of the pavement, until you can't hear their footsteps anymore. You swallow hard and turn around, heading back the way you'd come. You really, seriously, need to find a boyfriend. Fast.

.

.

The next day you decide that a swim would do you good. You're headed to the water park, when you see Freddie standing on the road, soaking wet, hair dripping down his face, shirt dry in patches and sticking to his skin in others, glancing over his shoulder.

"Freddie?" you ask, not quite believing your eyes.

He jumps then gives you a smile that doesn't reach his eyes. "Hey, Katie. How're you?"

"Fine," you lie, scrunching up your face in annoyance and confusion as he looks back over his shoulder.

"Are you waiting for someone?"

He turns back to you and seems somewhat flustered. "Yeah...No. I just thought maybe - I just told Effy something and I thought -" He shakes his head. "Nothing. I thought nothing."

The mention of Effy's names makes you tense up instantly. You don't know what Freddie told her, but you know that you probably don't want to know, either, so you don't inquire. Instead, you ask, "Oh, Effy's at the water park?"

Freddie nods. "Yeah."

He looks suddenly crestfallen when just moments before he'd seemed rather hopeful, and you find yourself taking pity on him. An idea occurs to you. You need a boyfriend and he needs a way to stop being hopeful that Effy is going to ever do anything but dick him around. (Another perk of your idea, that you're less okay with admitting to yourself, is that it would keep Effy and Freddie away from each other.)

"Look, Effy, she...She plays by her own rules, yeah? You can't spend your life waiting around for her. There are other girls, you know."

You pull your arms in closer to your side in a way that you know pushes out your tits more. Just like all males everywhere, Freddie's eyes drop to them, and you can't help but grin slightly at that. "Other girls that might be right in front of you," you add, batting your eyelashes just a bit.

"Right, yeah," Freddie mutters, and then his eyes widen as realisation of what she's hinting at. "OH! Right. Yeah." His eyes flit up and down her body and he gives her a little grin, but then his face sobers a bit. "You know, she's probably just going to call me later. I should...I should go...I'll call you, though, okay?"

You repress a snarky reply and nod with a fake smile. "Sure. Talk to you later, Freds." You make a point of brushing past him, letting your tits graze his arm even though it gets you a little bit wet. You no longer want to go to the water park, of course, but you don't want to seem like a loser and just turn back the way you've come so you walk on a bit further until Freddie starts walking and moves away. You could date him, you think, watching his lanky form strut into the distance. He's probably not complete shit in bed. At least he's considerate, unlike fucking Danny, which means he'll probably try a little harder to make sure you actually come too. Of course, he has to come around and stop being hung up on Effy, but your tits can work wonders on men's psyches (and have in the past).

As you head home, there's a slight spring in your step. You're going to get yourself a boyfriend, and it's going to be someone that Effy would consider fucking (or at least toying with), and that means that she can't fuck him. Maybe it'll even keep her away from you too. It seems like a win win. If only Freddie calls.

.

.

Your mobile rings at just after ten and you smirk smugly when you see the name flashing across it.

"Hello?" you answer, putting on your best innocent, but flirty voice.

"Hey, Katie. It's Freddie."

"Oh, hi, Freddie," you reply. You could say more. You could say that you're happy he called, for instance. You don't, though, because you're not going to make things super easy for him. Guys like a bit of a chase, even if it's manufactured.

"I, um...How are you?"

You roll your eyes. Is he really this fucking hopeless? No wonder Effy doesn't see him as anything but another toy to jerk around. "I'm better now you phoned," Katie replies flirtily.

"Oh, umm, good. Yeah, me, too. So I was thinking, Katie..."

"Yeah?"

"We should, like, hang out some time. You know?"

Really? That's how he asks a girl out on a date? You feel like you should say no just based on that. "Hang out?" you prod.

"Yeah, you know, like grab some food, watch a movie. That sort of thing."

That sort of thing? How fucking romantic. You repress a sigh. "Like a date?"

"Yeah," Freddie confirms.

"Are you asking me out, Freddie?" there's a coyness in your voice that you're a bit proud of, and it seems to do the trick because Freddie suddenly mans up a bit.

"Yes. Would you like to go out with me? Say...next Friday night?"

"Hang on, let me check my calendar," you reply. You know for a fact you don't have plans, but there's no reason he needs to know that. You leave the pause hanging in the air and ruffle through some papers on Emily's bedside table for effect, then you say, "It's your lucky day. Seems I'm free that night."

"Great!" You tell yourself that there's genuine enthusiasm in his voice. "I can't wait."

You don't bother to lie about returning the sentiment. Still, he'll do. It could even be fun. Maybe you'll even start to really like him like that. Maybe. At least you've got a date.

**.**

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**A/N: Thanks for reading! Hope you enjoyed it. Thanks also to everyone who read and reviewed the chapter I recently posted of Breathe Me. I really appreciate it! (Special thanks to Skins Head and to the girl with the crush on the swimmer: good luck!) Thanks, actually, to everyone who is still interested in reading these stories (and favouriting them and following them and whatnot). **

**x**


	6. Episode 6

**A/N: Found another chapter of this in me. Hope you enjoy. Thanks to FitchSwitch for betaing. **

**Disclaimer: I don't own Skins or the characters.**

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**Episode 6**

.

.

You start leaving your hair curly – big loose curls that are almost more like waves, but it's a difference between you and Emily. A good difference. It's a start. It means people can tell you apart.

You tell yourself that it wasn't sparked by the way you caught Emily just gazing across the room at Naomi like there was nobody else in the room. You really tell yourself that it's not because when you saw it, your eyes immediately flitted to Effy, who raised an eyebrow at her and then shot a pointed look at Emily as if to say, "I see it too, and I don't think you two are all that different really."

It was just about fucking time, really, that you stop milking the "identical twin" thing. Especially because you don't think that you've ever actually been completely identical. You've always been hotter, and she somehow looks mousier, though you don't know if that's just her lameness showing through, or an actual physical difference between you.

Anyway, if you're going to be dating Freddie, who is far too stoned far too much of the time, you should probably do something to distinguish yourself from Emily so he doesn't mistake her for you ever. He's probably constantly high enough that he would.

.

.

Freddie's a better date than you thought he'd be, and unlike a lot of the guys you've dated, he doesn't push for sex at the end of the night (though it's not like he's uninterested in the idea, if the bulge in his pants after your brief snog is anything to go by). He's respectful in his own way. You decide it's best to make him wait past the first date for sex. You're not a slag.

You don't act like a couple at school, and you try not to question why that seems to come from both of you. Actually, you don't tell anyone about the fact that you've been on a date with him, and there's another one scheduled for next weekend. You don't think he's told anyone either.

Half of you wants to just shout it from the rooftops. You have a boyfriend. You're not a loser and you're _definitely_ not _gay_. Half of you is nervous as to how Effy will react when she does find out, and you pretend not to know that Freddie is worried about the same thing. You know his motivations. (You pretend you don't know your own.)

.

.

Student elections are announced at school, and your sister's busy off convincing Naomi to run and like fucking planning her campaign or something. You don't know why. It's basically a popularity contest and Cook's running against her. (Much as you despise Cook a lot of the time, you can't deny his popularity.)

Emily's abandonment, and Effy's apparently new avoidance of Freddie (which you tell yourself you're not ridiculously happy about), leaves you sitting with her and Pandora a lot while stupid speeches are made and lunchtime campaigning is done. You do your best to keep Pandora in the middle as a buffer, but that doesn't mean that Effy never shoots you a smirk or a wink that leaves your stomach fluttering in a way that makes you somewhat nauseous. You hide it well, you think, but it always seems like there's only so much hiding things from Effy.

There seems to be an underlying _something_ that you're missing going on between Pandora and Effy, but you don't pry. It might be a little uncharacteristic of you, but at the moment you don't really want either of them prying back.

(You pretend that you don't see Freddie glancing longingly in a direction that clearly isn't yours whenever you're witting with them.)

Cook's fucking being ridiculous as always, and he seems to be trying to break as many school rules as possible in his campaigning. His term as president would no doubt dissolve the school to anarchy (and okay, Naomi maybe has some valid opinions on how to actually improve the fucking place, not that it'd really make a difference) and your peers seem to eat it up. The one part of his campaign that really makes you smile is the way that he has so many girls fawning all over him that he's got no time to try to fuck Effy. (It's just because you think she deserves better than him, and has nothing to do with the way that you keep counting out how many days it's been since the two of you last kissed.)

You're sitting on a table chatting to Pandora and Effy about nothing in particular, having a bit of lunch, when Naomi decides to get up on a different table and try to convince people that she is the best candidate.

Cook interrupts, true to form, and starts shouting about apples. Of course this starts a fucking argument between him and Naomi, who apparently can't just leave it and let him have his bit of fun. She's too principled or some shit, you guess.

Cook points out that nobody really cares about principles. Not in college. You're all only in school because it's a way to get to your future, but you'd all much rather party, and if school was a little more of a party, maybe it wouldn't be so horribly dull all the time.

Your sister (standing pathetically at Naomi's feet like her fucking lap dog or something) flips out in a way you've never seen.

"Cook, any chance you could go be a cunt over there, do you think?" asks a sister that you're not sure you recognise. The Emily you know isn't ballsy enough to stand up and say something like that.

Naomi, at least, has the decency to look embarrassed, but Cook…Cook's looking at them with his head tilted sideways.

"Awww…'s nice. Gettin' your girlfriend to hold your hand?"

You feel your entire body tense at the use of the word girlfriend, and you thank your lucky stars that it's Pandora, not Effy sitting next to you, because you just know that Effy would notice.

People laugh, and now you want to yell at them. Emily's not Naomi's fucking girlfriend. Neither of you is gay.

Cook goes on, despite Naomi's denials (and at least _someone_ has denied it), and then gets the student body all pumped up with his slogan of not giving a fuck. It's a pretty lame slogan, in the big scheme of things, but your idiotic classmates eat it up, and a moment later Naomi is storming out of the room with Emily fast on her heels.

You're not close enough to hear what Emily's saying, but you can't miss the way the Naomi turns around and snaps at her to just leave it. Even if your sister is acting like a sad sap in following her around all the time, Naomi had no right to fucking shout at her like that. On the bright side, it does stop Emily from following her any further.

You make the mistake of glancing over at Effy a moment later, and of fucking course she's just smirking at you with that "know-it-all" gleam in her eyes, and she leans across Pandora and puts her hand uncomfortably high on your thigh (for balance, you tell yourself as you struggle to breathe evenly). "Seems like _someone_ in the family's done with denial. I know who I'll be voting for this election. Do you?"

You swallow hard. "Um, the voting is supposed to be confidential ballot, you know," you say with as much attitude as you can muster while your heart is racing erratically.

Effy smirks one of her smirks that says, "That wasn't what I was really saying and you know it."

She leans back, but leaves her hand there for a second longer, then runs her fingers down to your knee before pulling her hand back to her own lap. You try your hardest not to shiver, though you're not positive you manage.

What the fuck did she really mean, then? Nobody in your family was in denial about anything except your dad about your innocence.

You scoot a little further away from Pandora, who's somehow missed the entire exchange (and probably would be even more confused about it than you are anyway), because her attention is elsewhere.

Once this stupid election is over you'll go back to avoiding Effy, you decide. Maybe you'll even tell people about dating Freddie.

You pull out your phone and shoot him a text. If you have a date tonight, you'll feel better.

He responds with a simple "sure" that leaves you wanting more.

.

.

You cast your ballot that afternoon. Your pencil hovers above the paper as you argue internally over lesser evils.

Cook's fucked Effy, but Naomi's been trying to pervert your sister since middle school.

Cook can be fun, but Naomi's got actual solid ideas that might just improve this stupid place.

Cook's a wanker, but Naomi's a bitch.

If Cook wins, he'll probably be so deep in pussy that he stays away from Effy for ages. If Naomi wins, she might be too busy actually helping the school to go anywhere near your sister.

You take a deep breath and mark a quick 'x' in the first box on the page before you can think better of it.

.

.

Emily disappears sometime that afternoon and won't tell you where she's going. You ignore the shy smile on her face. (That look usually means Naomi's involved and you really wish that that wasn't the case, but for tonight you can't be bothered.)

Freddie's fifteen minutes late picking you up, and, though he smells like cologne, you know he's just smoked up thanks to his bloodshot eyes and vacant stare. He's not going to be much of a conversationalist tonight, but, then again, maybe conversation's not what you need right now.

You make him take you to dinner anyway. You should at least get good food if you're not getting good company.

You suggest going back to his place after, and he seems relieved that his public dating duties are done for the evening.

.

.

His room's a bit messy when you get back there, but it doesn't smell bad, and he's got some cool decorations on the wall.

You kiss him hard, and he responds eagerly, his hands fumbling over your body and tugging clumsily at your clothes.

You stumble towards his bed, and help him out with the clothes removal. Sooner than you'd expected, he's poised above you, but you're not nearly dumb enough to get knocked up.

"Condom."

"Right, yeah," he pants, placing sloppy kisses down your neck as he reaches out blindly to his bedside table.

He bites the condom wrapper open with his teeth once he finds it and you briefly consider taking it from him and showing him just how good you are at putting a condom on a cock without using your hands, but he was late picking you up, and really he doesn't fucking deserve it, so you let him roll it down his own cock (which is pleasantly sizeable – you'd been a little worried that it would be as twiglike as he is).

His thrusts, once he finds a rhythm, are surprisingly skilled, and he has a stamina that you hadn't expected. He's actually occasionally hitting the right places, and while he's not the best shag you've ever had, he's certainly not the worst.

He brings you to orgasm (during which you definitely did not think about Effy's hand on your thigh earlier), and actually seems to care that you did, which is nothing to sneeze at.

As good as it feels to be properly fucked, and even though you're not a slag, you decide not to stay the night. Besides, if Emily's not back yet (and she fucking better be), that means there'll be no one to cover for you with your parents.

Freddie sparks up a spliff as he walks you to his bedroom door, and you steal a drag, then place a lingering kiss on his lips that you hope reminds him exactly who he's with.

.

.

Emily's not home. There's no message from her on your phone.

You send her a text and don't get an answer back.

You lay awake long after your head hits the pillow wondering when Emily became the kind of person who ignored her texts and kept secrets from her. You can't help wondering what it means in the grand scheme of things, too, if she really is out with Naomi.

.

.

There's a stunned silence when Harriet announces Naomi the winner of the election. You can't help feeling a touch relieved though (or you would if Effy hadn't decided to sit just behind you on a table so that her long, and more importantly _bare_ legs are right by your shoulder and impossible to ignore or not look at, even if it's just with your peripheral vision).

Naomi, surprisingly, doesn't even seem thrilled at her victory. She steps forward and sighs, then turns to Harriet and says, "You should have more confidence."

Your jaw drops along with the collective jaws of the student body.

Harriet asks a very cold, "What?"

"I mean, your tits are fine!"

You're not sure if you should be stunned that someone's talking to Harriet like that, amused that someone's talking to Harriet like that, or unsurprised that Naomi's making lezza comments like that. In the end, a small laugh escapes your lips.

"What?" Harriet demands again, the outrage in her voice growing.

"Probably a bit flat," Naomi continues, "but no need to stuff your bra." At that, Naomi actually steps forward and reaches in Harriet's blouse, pulling out a stack of ballots.

There's a pattering of laughter as she pulls out more and more ballots, and you'd probably be laughing with them if you weren't quite so focused on how gay it is of Naomi to just reach in another woman's top. She better not have tried that with Emily ever.

"Now, I'm not sure, but were these votes counted?" Naomi asks, starting to sort through them. "Cook, Cook, Cook, Cook…" she reads off.

Harriet's rage is bubbling just beneath the surface and she hisses at Naomi to stop her silliness. "You've won," Harriet urges.

Naomi shakes her head, and you have to give her credit for her ethicalness. "No. Cook won. He's our president."

You have to laugh, then, as others begin to cheer. He may not have been your ideal president, but this day has certainly just gotten a lot more interesting.

Cook steps forward. "And my first act as president of this school is to declare this riot OPEN!" he roars the last word, and the people around you start cheering and whistling, and even you have to clap.

Somebody presses the fire alarm and Cook pulls a fire extinguisher off the wall and starts spraying everyone as people begin to scatter, leaving havoc in their wake.

You end up following Effy down a hallway where people are ripping open lockers and throwing their contents to the floor. You slink sideways to avoid a group of boys that are half jumping, half punching their way down the hallway, and then you slip out of the door behind Effy.

Out front, students are tipping over teachers' cars and someone's even lighting one of fire. The police will be here soon, you have no doubt, but for the moment you just let yourself enjoy the chaos (although the fire extinguisher foam better not have stained your top).

Someone throws a roll of loo paper over your head, and suddenly they seem to be everywhere. You pick one up from where it's fallen near you and do a bit of decorating to the stairs and then to a couple who's busy snogging on the stairs.

You giggle as a group of the beauty girls attack the loser, Crispin, who was the other candidate for president with bottles of shaving cream, and pull his T-shirt over his head.

You glance in Effy's direction to see her soaking in the madness, the start of a genuine smile gracing her lips. She throws back her head and laughs as Crispin gets ushered past. She turns to follow, but then catches your eye.

She makes a beeline for you, and you can't help thinking that it would probably be a good idea to run the other direction and go indulge in some chaos elsewhere, but you don't move and Effy grabs you by the wrist and drags you around the building to where there are less people and it doesn't resemble a warzone quite as much. She stops in a corner and pushes you into it, then steps uncomfortably close so that her body is all but brushing against yours.

"Ef, what the fuck?"

"Shame Naomi won. She's a good candidate. Ethical."

You swallow hard, wondering if she knows you voted for her. She'll probably find that telling in some way that she really shouldn't. "She had principles."

"That's why she got my vote."

She's staring you in the eyes, and much as you want to, you can't look away. It feels like the piercing blue is swallowing you whole. "Oh?"

"Probably why she got yours, too, right?"

Of fucking course she knows. Of fucking course.

"Did she?"

Effy grins, then, and it's almost kind, but still mostly a smirk, and she leans her body fully against yours.

You hold your breath, scared to move against her as she murmurs, "Don't worry, Katie. Your secrets are safe with me."

She places a gentle kiss on your cheek and then dances away from you, back towards the chaos. You look around quickly to see who might have seen the two of you, but nobody is paying you any attention.

You breathe a sigh of relief. You don't know what she meant by secrets. It's not as if it's really a big deal if people find out you voted for Naomi, and that's just one secret anyway. She'd definitely said secrets, plural. Just another fucking mind game, you decide.

You resolve to go find Freddie and get out of there before the police show up.

.

.

That night at home you make Emily stop sulking long enough to put streaks of black in your hair. It'll just set you and she apart a little bit more.

"Cheer up, Ems. So what if Naomi lost. It's not like Harriet would have given her real power anyway."

"It's not that," Emily sighs, and you roll your eyes when she doesn't elaborate.

"Well, then…?" you prompt.

"Just leave it," Emily retorts, handing you the hair dye. "Fucking do this yourself, will you? I'm not your slave."

You gape after her as she leaves the bathroom and stomps down the hall. You really barely recognise her these days and you don't like it. She needs to get a grip and start being Emily again. "Bitch," you mutter under your breath then turn to the mirror. She'd done most of what you wanted anyway. You do another strip, and decide you're done.

Now it will be even harder for people to confuse you with your sister. You're not 100% positive why that seems so absolutely necessary right now.


End file.
